Four-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer Chad Brown is well known for his success training high-class turf horses. He’s won a bevy of Breeders’ Cup races, trained a large handful of champion horses, and saddled a winner in seemingly every major grass race in North America.
Author: News
Cox Hoping To Send Warrior’s Charge From Iselin To Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile
Trainer Brad Cox is doing his best to focus solely on Saturday's $200,000 Grade 3 Philip H. Iselin Stakes at Monmouth Park for Warrior's Charge, but it's not always easy when the ultimate goal – the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile – is this close.
Warrior's Charge, fourth in the Grade 1 Met Mile in his last start and a close-up fourth in the Preakness a year ago, heads a compact field of six for the 85th edition of the Iselin, the feature on a 14-race card.
“Our goal, our dream I guess you could call it, is the Breeders' Cup (Dirt) Mile (Nov. 7 at Keeneland),” said Cox. “I don't know if this would be his last race for that. We probably have some options.
“But I'm a one race at a time guy. I want to get through Saturday before we pick out our next couple of races. The goal is definitely to get this horse to the Breeders' Cup (Dirt) Mile and I feel like Monmouth Park's course, the way it plays, the mile and a sixteenth around two turns, would be something he will like. So we'll see.”
A 4-year-old Florida-bred son of Munnings-Battling Brook by Broken Vow, Warrior's Charge launched his 2020 campaign with a win in the Grade 3 Razorback at Oaklawn on Feb. 17. He followed that by finishing second in the Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap before being beaten just two lengths in the Met Mile at Belmont Park on July 4 in his last start.
Warrior's Charge sports a 4-1-3 from 10 career starts with earnings of $715,310.
“I thought he ran huge,” Cox said of the Met Mile. “I thought it was a big effort. He ran against some Grade 1 horses and he showed he can compete. I was very pleased with the effort and he bounced out of it in good shape.
“He has definitely matured. I think he has shown in his races this year that he has stepped up and run big against some of the best horses in the country.”
The speedy Warrior's Charge looks the most likely candidate on paper to control the pace with his front-running style, though the Grant Forster-trained Pirate's Punch is also a speedy type.
“Obviously we have a great jock for Monmouth Park in Paco Lopez,” said Cox. “So I feel comfortable with the set up. If all goes well and he gets a good, clean trip he will definitely be a factor.
“Bal Harbour is obviously a nice horse. Pirate's Punch is a nice horse as well. It's not a big field but it's a very competitive race. It's a group of horses that are very well matched.”
Bal Harbour, who has competed in graded stakes company his last eight starts, is trained by Gregg Sacco, who also supplemented multiple Grade 1 winner Mind Control to the race. Sacco said a decision on whether Mind Control will go in the Iselin Stakes will be made on Friday. The 4-year-old colt has tried two turns just once in his 14-race career, finishing seventh in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile in 2018.
“He's ready if that's the direction the owners want to go,” Sacco said.
Mind Control last raced in the Grade 1 Vanderbilt at six furlongs at Saratoga on July 25, finishing third.
Warrior's Charge, owned by Ten Strike Racing and Madaket Stables, will ship to Monmouth Park from Churchill Downs on Friday morning, Cox said, with the trainer's 21-year-old son Bryson handling the horse when he arrives in New Jersey.
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Coolmore Australia’s Virtual Stallion Parade Features Justify, American Pharoah
With the Southern Hemisphere breeding season kicking off and travel clamped down on a global scale, Coolmore Australia has released an hour-long “virtual stallion parade” to show off its 2020 roster, including Triple Crown-winning shuttle stallions Justify and American Pharoah.
The video series features virtual inspections and walk videos of each stallion, along with interviews with several prominent figures within the Coolmore organization, and surrounding the careers of the individual horses.
The Coolmore staff is represented by some of its highest-ranking members, including John Magnier, M.V. Magnier, David Wachman, and James Bester.
Justify, in particular, got a spotlight during the virtual stallion parade, featuring a conversation with the aforementioned Coolmore staff discussing the 2018 Triple Crown winner, as well as trainer Bob Baffert and Ashford Stud manager Dermot Ryan.
“It's so unusual to win a Triple Crown,” John Magnier said. “People have to realize there's only been 13 of them ever, and this fella is an unbeaten Triple Crown winner. You could be talking about he could be a Northern Dancer or he could be a Sunday Silence. He could be the next big thing.
“The world will get fixed sooner than everybody thinks, and when these Justify-type animals go to the yearling sales down there, the international people are going to be interested in Justifys and things of that nature,” he continued. “The way this game is going, the people that are going to survive, I believe, are the people that have the international outlook.”
For both Justify and American Pharoah, Magnier said their underlying appeal to turf racing made them priorities to add to the stallion roster, even though neither raced on the surface themselves, because that perceived affinity for the grass opens them up to greater international success in parts of the world where turf is the dominant surface, such as Europe and Australia.
“It's probably far more likely that Justify should get grass horses than American Pharoah,” Magnier said. “That was the reason that we just had to have him. He shouted for grass, really, and all of his racing was done on the dirt.”
American Pharoah, the winner of the 2015 Triple Crown, has already proven Coolmore's turf hunch to be true, as the sire of prominent grass runners including 2019 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint winner Four Wheel Drive. However, Magnier was confident the surface success would balance itself out over time.
“It's only a matter of time before American Pharoah will get a good dirt horse,” he said. “He's had some success in Japan.”
Baffert echoed Magnier's sentiment that Justify could have had it in him to compete on the turf, if he had been called on to do so.
“People have always asked me, 'You need to bring a horse to Ascot,'” Baffert said. “Now, that would have been the horse to take to Ascot. I think he would have been just phenomenal. But, the really great ones, they can run on anything…He brought his track with him.”
Noting Justify's imposing physical and penchant for getting to the lead early, Baffert said Justify probably could have succeeded on the opposite side of the surface and distance spectrum, as well.
“I came from the Quarter Horse world, and believe me, he could have won the All American Futurity, a $2-million race,” he said. “He's that quick. He's that versatile that he's quick on his feet and just gets running really fast. I could have trained him to win an 870 [yard] race.”
Justify's first Northern Hemisphere foals are weanlings of 2020, and Ryan said they're already starting to emulate their sire in terms of their physicals.
“They have that big hip, rear end, and good hind leg,” he said. “That big ass-end, strength, that drives him. That's very dominant in nearly all of them, that rear end and muscle behind.”
The full virtual stallion parade video can be found below, but the landing page to break the show out by individual stallions can be found here.
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Sprint Star Battaash Chasing Repeat Victory In Friday’s Nunthorpe Stakes
Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum's Battaash (IRE) is set to take on seven rivals as he bids to repeat last year's win in the 5-furlong Coolmore Nunthorpe Stakes (G1) at York on Friday. The Nunthorpe Stakes winner will receive an automatic berth into the US$1 million Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint (G1) through the international Breeders' Cup Challenge Series.
The Breeders' Cup Challenge is a series of stakes races whose winners receive automatic starting positions and fees paid into a corresponding race of the Breeders' Cup World Championships, which is scheduled to be held at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Ky., on Nov. 6-7.
Battaash, now a 6-year-old, has been better than ever in 2020, gaining a first success at Royal Ascot in the King's Stand Stakes (G1) before setting a new track record when winning the Qatar King George Stakes (G2) at Goodwood for the fourth year in a row. Sheikh Hamdan's retained rider, Jim Crowley, will again be in the saddle.
Battaash's trainer, Charlie Hills, enjoyed Breeders' Cup success with Chriselliam (IRE) in the 2013 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1) and has been delighted with his stable star in the three weeks since Goodwood.
Hills said: “He came out of his Goodwood run in good shape, and we're happy with where we are with him at the moment. Goodwood was a great day, but this game moves on pretty quickly, so you have to come back down to earth. York is a fast track, which obviously suits him.”
The two 3-year-olds in the race, Art Power (IRE) and A'Ali (IRE), are expected to provide the toughest opposition. Art Power, trained locally by Tim Easterby and ridden by former champion jockey Silvestre De Sousa, has won his last four starts, including the Coolmore Sioux Nation Lacken Stakes (G3) in Ireland last month.
A'Ali, a contender in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint (G2) last year, won for the fifth time at Group 2 level last month, capturing the Holden Plant Rentals Sapphire Stakes (G2) at the Curragh. The Society Rock (IRE) colt is trained by the father and son team of Simon and Ed Crisford and ridden by William Buick.
Moss Gill (IRE) and Que Amoro (IRE), first and third in the listed John Smith's City Walls Stakes over course and distance last time out, re-oppose, while others lining up at York and looking to earn their place at this year's Breeders' Cup are the Kevin Ryan-trained Emaraaty Ana (GB), veteran sprinter Ornate (GB) and the outsider of the field, Kurious (GB).
As part of the benefits of the Challenge series, the Breeders' Cup will pay the entry fees for the winner of the Coolmore Nunthorpe Stakes to start in the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint, which will be run at 5 1/2 furlongs over the Keeneland turf course. Breeders' Cup also will provide a travel allowance of $40,000 for all starters based outside of North America to compete in the World Championships. The Challenge winner must already be nominated to the Breeders' Cup program or it must be nominated by the Championships' pre-entry deadline of Oct. 26 to receive the rewards.
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