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This Side Up: Manners Maketh Mandaloun

How ironic, that a man with a nearly anguished instinct for self-effacement should have left so indelible an impression on our walk of life–one he strolled so quietly that he insisted on registering his silks, with The Jockey Club in Britain, simply in the name of Mr. K. Abdullah. How many others who covet the Turf’s great prizes, in contrast, elbow their way through the crowd in preening advertisement of their wealth and acuity?

If we learn much about such people from their presumption of some deeper dignity, from a status they cannot sustain even by a royal title, so we can surmise something of those human qualities–generally so inscrutable–that were extinguished with the loss of Prince Khalid this week. For he plainly considered “Mr.” an ample prompt to our general obligation of mutual civility; above all, perhaps, among those who constantly witness the egalitarianism that persists between Thoroughbreds themselves. Whatever advantages we seek in pedigree–the foundation, after all, of his entire Juddmonte empire–even the Prince will have seen the most regal foals reduced to the claiming ranks, or denied the throne by blue-collar upstarts.

Admittedly the courteous lineaments of his public appearances so confined his inner nature that we should perhaps hesitate before discovering some third dimension barely exposed even to those in our community who spent years in his service. For their tributes have been in much the same register as those made from a more superficial vantage. Even from the outside, any of us might ascribe to him attributes of ‘the perfect gentleman’. First and foremost, precisely that freedom from self-importance; but also his distaste for the kind of hiring and firing that we see in the Turf’s coarser patrons.

So perhaps we actually knew him better than we realized. Certainly his striking fidelities suggest an unshakable respect for those qualities that abide within those who might not appear, to more fickle judgements, in a deserving state of grace. He was just about the last man standing when Sir Henry Cecil paid with the contempt of fashion for a human brittleness in the face of adversity. And while Bobby Frankel never lost professional esteem in the same way, you suspect that few who share the Prince’s antecedents would have become quite so devoted to a cantankerous Jewish gambler from Brooklyn.

The Prince with Sir Henry Cecil in 2011 | Racing Post

The sheer breadth of humanity encompassed by those two trainers, their wildly divergent personalities united by a slender strand of genius, attested to a tolerance and empathy in the Prince that would serve us all well, not least in these rancorous times. A tragic destiny, of course, reserved for Frankel and Cecil a cruel extra bond, in their premature loss to cancer. But a happier clause in the unforgiving terms of fate was the arrival of a champion, named in memory of one, to redeem the darkest hour of the other.

Arguably the Prince surrendered something even of Juddmonte’s defining achievement to the needs of his suffering trainer. Even with his own time probably short, he delayed Frankel’s retirement as the apogee of his breeding program so that Cecil would retain a spur to his fortitude every time he went out onto the gallops. And the Prince also indulged the rather parochial priorities that somewhat hampered Cecil even in his pomp, never mind at a time when personal travel had become impractical.

The Prince must surely have asked himself, as did some of us mere bystanders, what capacities remained unexplored in Frankel as Cecil kept him, almost to the end, in the same domestic pool of outclassed milers. Constantly compared with specters of the past, Frankel was never given the chance to measure himself even against his contemporaries overseas. The Prince had a mansion just beside the Bois de Boulogne, and first became enchanted by the Turf when taken by friends to Longchamp in 1956. And he adored the Breeders’ Cup. Hopefully his enjoyment of Frankel’s wonderful start at stud was not too poignantly tempered by the reflection that the speed-carrying capacity he imparts to his stock really should have been examined either in the Arc or at the Breeders’ Cup.

A trifling quibble, by now, in a legacy that has long been secure–and will long continue to evolve. Indeed, just as Juddmonte once gave a cherished friend a critical transfusion of vitality, perhaps those grieving the Prince now will themselves find some timely succour from its bloodlines.

Mandaloun | Coady

Because none of us, surely, will be able to resist a frisson that some benign force may assist the Juddmonte colt who finds himself, on this of all weekends, dipping a toe into the Triple Crown water in the GIII Lecomte S.

The Kentucky Derby was one of the few great ambitions to elude the Prince, albeit he managed two seconds (Aptitude and Empire Maker) from only five starters. Mandaloun is by the same extraordinary sire that has just settled any doubt as to his competence to stretch his trademark speed, with the improvement in his mares, to the demands of the Derby.

The upgrading of Into Mischief‘s books was aptly measured when the Prince favored him with a visit from Mandaloun’s dam, Empire Maker’s daughter Brooch, a Group 2 and 3 winner in Ireland. Judicious introduction of external blood has been key to the constant invigoration of the Prince’s families. In this case, however, the first three dams are all by homebred stallions: Empire Maker, Dansili (GB) and Distant View. But the fourth dam is Queen of Song (His Majesty), a sister to Cormorant added to the expanding Juddmonte band for $700,000 at the 1989 Keeneland November Sale.

Brad Cox also saddles an exciting sophomore filly for Juddmonte in the Silverbulletday S. Already No. 2 in colleague Bill Finley’s TDN Oaks Top 10, Sun Path is by another commercial stallion in Munnings. In her case, however, her first three dams are all by other outside sires: Tapit, Nureyev and Nijinsky. The third is champion Chris Evert’s daughter Nijinsky Star, acquired (from the Carl Rosen dispersal) in the same ring as Queen of Song, and for the same price, two years previously.

Whereas Queen Of Song had won 14 of 58 starts for Parrish Hill Farm, Nijinsky Star appeared a very different proposition: in fact, she had a tube exiting a lung, draining fluid from a bout of pleurisy in her younger days. But that did not put off the Prince and his team, and his investment paid off with Nijinsky Star’s emergence as foundation mare. Two daughters by Nureyev did especially well: Viviana produced multiple Grade I winners Sightseek (Distant View) and Tates Creek (Rahy), while Willstar gave us not only Group 1 winner Etoile Montante (Miswaki) but Touch the Star, who has already produced Bonny South by Tapit to win the GII Fair Grounds Oaks last year; and now Sun Path.

Sun Path | Hodges Photography

So both these Classic prospects exemplify the Prince’s patient refinement of families, an artistry and precision spanning three decades. Though their breeder actually started out by breaking the European record for a yearling almost immediately–giving 264,000gns for a Grundy colt at the 1978 Houghton Sale, ultimately to little avail–he showed great discrimination in his choice of talent, both human and equine, once deciding to build up his own program. It might seem easy for a member of the Saudi royal family to buy the right quality, but it’s worth recording that wealthy rivals spent even more on 37 other mares at the sale where the Prince bought Nijinsky Star. Needless to say, few proved anything like as good an investment.

In recent times the Prince had become frail, rather than just elegantly slender, and was rarely seen even as his last champion Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}) prolonged her exuberant reign. But he had already long guaranteed a vibrant legacy to generations of horsemen to come.

For whenever they pore over pedigrees–renewing the perennial puzzle of what works and why–they will find themselves clinging gratefully to the footholds chiselled by this dignified, recessive figure. He will loom over the 21st Century breed much as Federico Tesio or the 17th Earl of Derby did before, paradoxically dragged by his own, understated passion into the applause of posterity from the anonymity he cherished.

Frankel | Juddmonte photo

Tesio’s exotic personality and beliefs were vividly chronicled, both by his own pen and others; while Derby’s public career in wartime gave him much wider profile. But this temperate Prince we respected, as much as anything, for the respect he exuded: whether in his personal bearing, or in the things he did (or, more importantly, the things he didn’t do) with the horses and horsemen in his service. In the old axiom, ‘manners maketh man’.

Sometimes a man becomes most truly distinguished by camouflage. I love to think of the young Prince, not yet 20, at Longchamp in 1956. People must have looked straight through him then, immaculately dapper though he surely must have been, unwitting of the transformational ambitions stirring in this captivated young Arab. That must have suited him just fine. But however little we really knew ‘the Prince’, and whatever complicated shades of humanity remained ever beyond our reach, we bid farewell to ‘Mr. Abdullah’ with much respect. And we will all duly celebrate success for Mandaloun, or Sun Path, simply as an immediate assurance that his bequest to the breed, whatever happens to Juddmonte now, will outlive us all.

The post This Side Up: Manners Maketh Mandaloun appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Sottsass Keeps Zerolo’s Oceanic Ahead of the Fleet

The trade winds, in the clipper age, blew west to east. But horsepower has reversed the flow; and for many years one of the most skilled navigators, for European horses to America, has been the debonair Michel Zerolo of Oceanic Bloodstock.

The cargos are more contested nowadays, he says, with a lot of sharp traders driving up prices. But the fact is that Zerolo recently scaled a new pinnacle, with the G1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe success of a Deauville yearling bought for an American patron. Sottsass (Fr) (Siyouni {Fr}), moreover, is a sibling to the very first horse he found for Peter Brant, Sistercharlie (Fr) (Myboycharlie {Ire}), imported to win seven Grade Is in America.

Zerolo has made a useful habit of landing running with his most important clients. In that respect, in fact, perhaps the pivotal moment of his entire career came at Fasig-Tipton’s July Sale of 1982, when he introduced himself to a trainer who had just begun to build on a reputation initially established through claims and gambles.

“I saw him there, in Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops, and he looked a cool guy,” Zerolo remembers. “I was a kid, but he had no pretense about him and gave me his number.”

Bobby Frankel probably needed reminding of that conversation when Zerolo telephoned with a horse from Europe, but a deal was done.

Trainer Bobby Frankel with his dog Happy at Saratoga | Horsephotos

“And actually he was a decent animal, I think he won a stake at the Fair Grounds,” Zerolo recalls. “But then the second one I sold Bobby, we struck gold. In those days Adrian Maxwell would come to Florida in the winter with a string of horses that were all for sale. And in that group was a Sheikh Hamdan cast-off, a 3-year-old called Al Mamoon (Believe It). He was the horse that got it all started, really.”

In Frankel’s care, Al Mamoon won five graded stakes and also chased home Cozzene (Caro) in the GI Breeders’ Cup Mile. From that point, Zerolo regularly supplied the great man with ammunition.

“Bobby was a huge factor, in that he just made you look good,” Zerolo says. “He was incredible. You gave this guy some, okay, maybe not average horses, but you give him a ‘B’ horse, or even a ‘C’, and it became an ‘A-plus’. And he was just a gambler from Brooklyn. But do you know what Bobby had? He loved animals. Remember when he didn’t show up at the Breeders’ Cup, because his dog was ill? And when Exbourne (Explodent) foundered, Bobby stayed with him hours and hours. He had that respect for animals; everything was for the horse.”

Zerolo had started out thinking that he might become a trainer himself, but believes now that he would have lacked due patience. As it was, Frankel determined one of the defining tenets of his strategy.

“I’ve always made it a rule of thumb that if I cannot buy the best horses, or the best-bred horses, at least I’m going to put them with the best trainers,” Zerolo says. “Because it’s only a matter of getting an introduction, and your client being able to pay whatever it takes to be there. And that’s a huge help.”

At the time he approached Frankel, Zerolo had only recently gone solo after being introduced to the bloodstock market as American liaison for French agent Frédéric Sauque.

“Frédéric was driven by success, by work; a very inventive, very creative man,” Zerolo says. “It was interesting, because it was the first time in my life I actually made money. All of a sudden I thought, ‘This is an easy game.’ I soon learned that wasn’t the case.”

Nonetheless, he had found his metier. It had been quite an odyssey already. His grandfather had moved to Algeria as a young surgeon, and Zerolo was born and spent his earliest years there. But he has only the dimmest memory of the family’s flight, in 1962, during the War of Independence.

“Basically we left with suitcases, and that was it,” he recalls. “We left everything. It was a very dirty war, like those wars always are. Members of my family were killed. We did feel let down by the French government.”

They settled in Toulon, but the upheavals that shaped the young Zerolo were not over. He was at boarding school in the Massif Central when the radical unrest of 1968 brought everything to a standstill for three months.

“So we were all stuck at this school, with nothing to do,” Zerolo says. “There was no petrol, trains would stop. The teachers couldn’t get in, so we were pretty much left to our own devices. It was magic for us. I must say I was a terrible student anyway. But close by there was a riding academy, and that’s how my passion for horses started.”

Zerolo at his Capucines consignment at Arqana | Zuzanna Lupa-Arqana

The connection was instant, for all that he had no kind of pedigree for horses. His father had entered the family profession, as a surgeon; and while his mother would occasionally ride at their grain and palm oil estates, in the south of Algeria, that was all. Yet soon Zerolo was riding eventers.

“I think it starts with the love of the animal, there’s no doubt about that,” he says with a shrug. “After that, it’s something you either have it or you don’t. And it’s observation, too. I don’t know that I was born with an instinct. You’d like to think so, but mainly you learn by your mistakes-because you make lots of those.”

The door to Thoroughbreds was opened by teenage vacations with his grandparents at Pau. One day a friend there raised a pertinent question: why were they paying to ride at the academy, when they could get paid to ride at the training centre over the street? That transition sowed the seeds for Zerolo, after military service, to begin his Turf vocation in earnest at a stable in Chantilly. Stints followed on stud farms in Ireland and then Kentucky, culminating at Spendthrift. The farm was in its late 1970s heyday, with that paragon John Williams lighting a path for the countless horsemen who have since spread his illumination, as man and horseman, through the industry.

“Rick Nichols was assistant manager, there was Steve Johnson, Allen Kershaw, so many people meanwhile very successful in their own right,” Zerolo recalls. “I was there with Gerry Dilger, Robbie Lyons, all those guys of my generation. And, in the stallion barn, I was there when JO Tobin retired, when Seattle Slew retired; when Affirmed arrived, Caro arrived. John was an incredible mentor to all of us, because he had such a work ethic. He was driven like noone I’ve ever seen. He took on Spendthrift, turned it around and made it what it was.”

As already noted, he first branched out into bloodstock with Sauque; but he also remembers with gratitude the support of Edward Seltzer. “Ed gave me lot of latitude,” he recalls. “He let me learn by experience, and by making mistakes. Such an interesting fellow, both in racing and in breeding.”

As he became established professionally, Zerolo was also putting down some domestic roots-in Miami, with a first wife who already had a couple of children. “All I needed was a dog!” he says. “It anchored me down. But I have always made regular trips back to Europe, maybe every five to six weeks. In fact, today I would say I have more and more of a foothold in Europe-so much so that I think I’m actually going to reverse the poles, and base myself primarily in France.”

His portfolio, after all, has long had its center of gravity there. Very soon after getting started, for instance, he entered partnership with Eric Puerari in the Haras des Capucines; and meanwhile, along with Marc de Chambure, they also developed the European Sales Management draft, dependably one of the elite consignments at the Tattersalls breeding stock sales.

“I was interested in breeding and Eric, who was born into it, really opened my eyes,” Zerolo reflects. “It started gradually. At first it was just an idea of buying and selling horses, trying to build towards the next level. And then an opportunity came to buy into a farm. I don’t know that we really sat down and planned anything: at that age, you don’t really think about it, you run with it. And European Sales Management was the same, a partnership born through opportunity and friendship. There was an economy of scale, and it has worked very well.”

Zerolo and his partner in Capucines, Eric Puerari | Zuzanna Lupa-Arqana

But the trademark of Oceanic Bloodstock itself has become the recruitment of European turf horses eligible to raise their earning power in the United States. Zerolo points to Juddmonte as the blueprint, noting how you need only look at a typical Juddmonte pedigree to find a second or third dam that started out with Sir Henry Cecil, say, or Andre Fabre, before being transferred to Frankel in California.

With Frankel, the trust was such that if the horse passed the vet, Zerolo would be told: “Okay, send me the horse and send the bill to so-and-so.” His owners were so awed by Frankel that none ever declined, except in the famous case of Starine (Fr) (Mendocino). Zerolo kept a stake as she overcame her obscure pedigree to win in Frankel’s own silks at the Breeders’ Cup, where she has now featured as second dam of a winner two years running.

Before Brant came aboard, Zerolo’s principal ally in this kind of enterprise was Martin Schwartz, with the likes of Stacelita (Fr) (Monsun {Ger}) and Zagora (Fr) (Green Tune). But no less crucial was Chad Brown, identified by Zerolo as “a natural successor” to Frankel (whom he had served as assistant). Yes, Brown gained momentum for his own career from the association; but he also confirmed Zerolo in his belief that half the battle is having the right trainer on your team. The other half, a client with sufficient verve and commitment, was where Schwartz came in.

“Marty gave me great opportunities for a long, long time,” says Zerolo gratefully. “He was one of the very few men operating at that level. He’s in the high-speed, high-testosterone finance world. So he needed a sort of a release for his energy: he loves to bet, he loves action, but he has no interest in breeding whatsoever.”

Brant, on the other hand, is fascinated by the whole, acorn-to-oak process. In his initial stint on the Turf, uniquely, he bred both sire and dam of a Kentucky Derby winner, Thunder Gulch (Gulch).
“In those days, he was the young, successful, adventurous man with his cousin Joe Allen,” Zerolo recalls. “All those good horses he was buying, whether dirt or grass, his mindset was the same: let’s go for the best. He’s a fascinating man; a renaissance man. He has led a fascinating life and whether you talk about art, or politics, or horses, he always has a very interesting opinion. And he’s challenging, too: he keeps you on your toes. He does his homework.

“Anyway, after he had disappeared for 20 years, and came back, I reintroduced myself and he said, ‘If you see something interesting, give me a call.’ And yes, the very first call was Sistercharlie. I happened to be at Saint-Cloud when she won a conditions race. Her turn of foot was spectacular. So I called Peter. It took a little bit of time to register, and by that time she had won a Group 3, so she obviously became more expensive. But then she ran in the [G1] Prix de Diane, and should have won, so already there could not be too many doubts about what we’d done.”

And so the dominoes began to fall towards an Arc winner. Sistercharlie’s half-brother had to be on the inspection list at the Arqana August Sale of 2017, and Brant authorized a bid of €340,000.

“I was fortunate that Peter gave me enough credit,” Zerolo says. “That’s always the critical element of the equation, the funds! I mean, he was not cheap. But he was a very good-looking horse. Not particularly like Sistercharlie, actually: he looks very much like his dam.”

Sottsass | Scoop-Dyga

Once again, much has hinged been the genius of a trainer. “Full credit to Jean-Claude Rouget who basically, in his own quote, had to lose other races in order to win the Arc,” Zerolo says. “That took a bit of explanation, to get Peter on board. I think the only time we collectively took a stand with Jean-Claude was that Sottsass would run in the [G1] Irish Champion Stakes. I think Jean-Claude was going for a classic French preparation, but we thought the horse needed a bit of a kick in the ass. That race really woke him up. But Jean-Claude is an extraordinary trainer, a great judge and a born horseman. I mean, he’s won eight Classic races in seven years, something like that.”

Zerolo, naturally enough in view of his success, operates within the orthodoxies: he doesn’t export European horses to run on dirt, instead content to exploit a lack of depth in American grass breeding. He refutes the objection that dirt and turf horses may be more versatile than we allow.

“If it’s not on the page, it doesn’t exist,” he argues. “When you look at a pedigree and you see grass, grass, grass, it’s a grass horse. It’s a different animal, physically. You need a more athletic horse, one who’s lighter on his feet. On dirt you need a strong horse: I mean, they have to dig themselves out from that stuff. Mechanically, it’s a different thing.

“But it is true, going way back when I first started in this business, that we imported a French horse called Perrault (GB) (Djakao {Fr}), who was as grassy a horse as grass could be. And first start on the dirt he wins the Hollywood Gold Cup. But he was built like a bull.”

The paradox is that while the right blood still can’t get commercial traction among American breeders-Zerolo describes standing a grass stallion in the U.S. as “nearly impossible”–the turf program is thriving, ever more competitive and respected. That, of course, is partly down to the efforts of importers like Zerolo and his rivals. But he feels the industry needs to heed the logic and follow through: with a turf Triple Crown, for instance; and a recognition that the training habits passed down through the generations may literally have run their course.

“I don’t see the future of American racing with training horses on the racetrack,” he declares. “I know it’s a big statement. But I think training centers are the way of the future. I think that’s why Peter Brant bought Payson Park. The logistics in America make it difficult. But I think the ‘all-American’ trainer, who would have 20 webbings, five forks, five saddles, and three exercise riders, there’s going to be less and less of that. It’s sad in some ways, yes. But we’re in the era of the super trainers.”

Yet whatever European practice might be usefully emulated here, Zerolo still feels that the Old World must also look to its laurels.

“I think you can safely say that today you will find the world’s best racehorses in Japan,” he suggests. “There’s been a haemorrhage of good pedigrees from America to Europe, and then lately from America and Europe to Japan. So the poles have shifted. It’s incredible what the Yoshida family has built up. I have watched them all along, because I was sort of competing against them in the early 2000s, when buying expensive fillies for Mr. Schwartz. They were pretty much my only competition for good racehorses; not necessarily horses with fantastic pedigrees, but good racehorses with decent pedigrees.”

Even so, his own trade route is more imitated than ever. To a degree, he’s become a victim of his own success. But few others in the business could be so comfortable, so adaptable, in straddling this cosmopolitan market-a natural consequence, perhaps, of that peripatetic, nomadic upbringing.

“Yes, maybe it takes me to my roots,” Zerolo says with a laugh. “But it’s all about opportunities. Before, horses were a lot cheaper. There were very few people doing it. Today there’s less and less slack. There are a lot of talented young men and women making it extremely competitive. Before, you used to be able to buy a Group 3 winner in Europe, and were almost assured, if you went to Bobby Frankel, that it would become a Grade I horse. Now it’s very rare, that magic order: find me a well-bred filly, a Group 3 horse that can run. I used to be able to pick up the phone and call 10 people. Now you have to look at Listed horses, you have to downgrade a little bit.”

Hence the importance of the Arc: raising the bar higher yet. Zerolo is still at the helm, the rest still sailing eagerly in his wake. After all, even for the best, this business remains a constant puzzle.
“Yes, and a constant punishment as well,” he says. “Because as you know, you’re wrong more often than you’re right.”

That’s the same for every horseman, of course. What makes the difference is not just how often you get something right, but how right you get it. And the launch of a €30,000 stallion at Coolmore, 32 years after Al Mamoon went to stud, suggests that Zerolo is still steering a course others will try to follow.

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Hollendorfer Planning To Return To Monmouth Park In 2021

After four successful months having a string of horses at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J., for the first time, Hall of Fame trainer Jerry Hollendorfer has been so satisfied with the results that he intends to make the Shore track part of his regular racing rotation going forward.

That was plan revealed by Dan Ward, Hollendorfer's longtime assistant, after the stable continued its strong Monmouth Park presence when heavily-favored Croatian cruised to victory in Saturday's featured $52,500 allowance optional claimer.

Ward, who has been with Hollendorfer the past 14 years after spending the previous 22 as an assistant to the late Bobby Frankel, has overseen the Hollendorfer runners at Monmouth while his boss kept tabs from California.

With two victories on Saturday's 10-race card, the Hollendorfer stable has won with three of seven starters during the abbreviated Meadowlands-at-Monmouth Park meet after going 14-for-50 during the regular Monmouth Park meet.

“We could not be happier about the way things have gone at Monmouth Park this year,” Ward said. “After this meet ends (Oct. 24) we're going to go to Churchill Downs for two months and then to Oaklawn through April and then we'll be back here.

“It's been fantastic. It's a safe track. You get all kinds of weather and the track was always safe. It has been a pleasure to train and race here this year.”

Ward was assigned 27 horses for Monmouth Park this year, and said the goal is to grow those numbers for next season.

“We're trying to build things up, so we intend to have even more horses when we come back here next year. We hope next year is even better here,” he said, “All I can tell you is that we're very pleased with the entire operation here. Jerry is very happy. So we hope to keep coming back and keep this as part of our regular routine every year.

Ward had not been to Monmouth Park since 1991, when he was an assistant to Frankel and Marquetry won the Philip H. Iselin Stakes that year.

The final week of the Thoroughbred season in New Jersey kicks off Wednesday, Oct. 21, with a nine-race card that features five turf races. Post time is 12:50 p.m. ET.

The post Hollendorfer Planning To Return To Monmouth Park In 2021 appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Chad Brown’s First 100 Grade 1 Wins: Individual Management, Imagination Fuel Meteoric Rise

Since 1973, when the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association began designating the best American stakes as Grade 1, 2 or 3, no trainer has won his first 100 Grade 1 races – the sport's most prestigious – faster than Chad Brown.

Brown registered his first Grade 1 victory on July 30, 2011, when Zagora won the Diana at Saratoga. His 100th came less than nine years later, on July 11, 2020, when Guarana won the Madison Stakes at Keeneland. The four-time (2016-'19) Eclipse Award winner as outstanding trainer added his 101st Grade 1 win that same afternoon when Rushing Fall took the Jenny Wiley at Keeneland.

Thirty years earlier, D. Wayne Lukas put the pedal to the metal almost as quickly as Brown would do, winning his first Grade 1 with Codex in the Santa Anita Derby March 30, 1980, and crossing the 100 mark a little over nine years later. Lukas is the all-time leader by Grade 1 wins, with 219, followed by Bob Baffert, who won his first Grade 1 with Thirty Slews in the 1992 Breeders' Cup Sprint. Baffert didn't reach 100 Grade 1s until 2010, although he has been the most productive trainer at the Grade 1 level in the last decade, winning 111 in the U.S. from 2010 until the present. He is second behind Lukas, with 207.

At 41 years old, Brown is the youngest trainer to reach the century mark in Grade 1 victories.

Based on available data compiled from Equibase, only seven trainers have exceeded 100 American Grade 1 victories in their careers.

They are:

Wayne Lukas…219
Bob Baffert…207
Robert Frankel…171
Todd Pletcher…158
Charles Whittingham…138
Shug McGaughey…129
William Mott…122
Chad Brown…101

Caveats: The list does not include Grade/Group 1 victories in Dubai, Europe or Asia. Because Equibase does not list any graded stakes prior to 1976 on trainer profiles, Ron McAnally (with 94 from 1976 to present) may be the ninth trainer to make that list. For the purposes of the above list, stakes results for Charlie Whittingham from 1973-'75 were taken from the Jay Hovdey biography, “Whittingham: The Story of a Thoroughbred Racing Legend,” and added to what Equibase includes on his trainer profile page. Not included are pre-1973 races that would become Grade 1 fixtures once grading of stakes began.

Brown, a native of Mechanicville, N.Y., has come a long way in a short time since saddling his first winner, Dual Jewels, in a $5,000 claiming race at Churchill Downs on Nov. 23, 2007. His first graded stakes winner came in 2008 when Maram won the Grade 3 Miss Grillo. The filly would give Brown his first Breeders' Cup victory later that year while winning the inaugural Juvenile Fillies Turf, a race would that would become a Grade 1 in 2012. It was the first of his 15 Breeders' Cup championship races.

Brown was accustomed to working with Grade 1 winners years before he hung out his shingle as a public trainer, having worked for two Hall of Famers, Shug McGaughey and Bobby Frankel. The latter spent much of his career dominating the claiming ranks, but once he proved what he could do with good horses, there was no looking back. Frankel was voted Eclipse Awards as outstanding trainer five times (1993, 2000-'03) and inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1995.

Brown was an assistant to Frankel in 2003 when the latter established an all-time record for most Grade 1 victories in a single year: 25.

“It seemed like we were winning Grade 1s every week,” said Brown, who spent time that year with Frankel strings at Hollywood Park in California and Belmont Park in New York. “We had a murderer's row of great horses, and I learned a lot. It was hard to believe all these horses were in the same barn. You try to take it all in, every day. He and Humberto (longtime Frankel assistant Humberto Ascanio) trained you to be so focused on your task every day.

“I remember Frankel carefully managing each horse individually,” Brown said. “It's where I started to learn about managing horses at the top end, how he did it on an individual basis, and recognizing how important it is to do it that way. We were winning Grade 1s on dirt, turf, long, short, male, female, young and very old. It really stuck with me to really pay attention every day, every hour, every minute.

“Bobby was a perfectionist. He set high goals for himself and had an incredible feel for horses and animals in general. The other thing with Bobby that I saw in managing horses was this: Anyone can say I wish I had that guy's or that girl's horses. But when you have them, you find out they're not all easy. With Bobby, when I say I learned so much, the one thing I feel I have in common is imagination. Bobby had an imagination to see into the future, how things were going to turn out. When you train horses at this level, that would be a common trait, that you have an imagination.

“Ghostzapper was not always a great work horse,” Brown said. “Bobby knew that this was the best horse he ever trained. He said it all the time, before that horse became who he was. I couldn't figure it out, not until the Iselin, when he finally showed how good he was.” The Grade 3 Philip H. Iselin, Ghostzapper's eighth career start and his second race at 4 when he was voted Horse of the Year, was followed by Grade 1 victories in 2004 in the Woodward, Breeders' Cup Classic and the 2005 Met Mile.

“I caught him at the perfect time,” Brown said of Frankel. “He had the best horses and he was the smartest trainer. I was a huge beneficiary.”

Fast forward to the present, where Brown has applied the many lessons learned from Frankel, who died in 2009.

“Our system, our roster of horses has been built over time to compete in all categories,” he said. “I want to be able to individually train and manage horses across the board. Frankel was very rare to be able to do that.”

Has Brown set Frankel's single-season record of 25 Grade 1 victories as a goal for his stable?

“I am a goal-oriented person, just conceptually to motivate me and my team to try and get somewhere, not for personal recognition or satisfaction,” he said. “We try to do better than in the previous year. That record did cross my mind the last two years, only because it was Bobby. When we got to the high teens, I thought we had a chance. I always thought this was a record that no one could ever hit, but then I saw a couple of scenarios: if, if, if …”

Each year Brown maxed out at 20 Grade 1 victories.

With all the disruptions to racing in 2020 from the coronavirus pandemic (including several Grade 1 races not being run), it's highly unlikely anyone will approach Frankel's record this year.

But success begets success, and Brown has a steady pipeline of high-end racing prospects and proven imports coming his way from some of the sport's leading owners.

In a sense, he's just getting warmed up.

“I'm lucky to have an amazing team,” said Brown. “We've built a talented roster of teammates, co-workers. It's pretty obvious that it's a team effort.”

The post Chad Brown’s First 100 Grade 1 Wins: Individual Management, Imagination Fuel Meteoric Rise appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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