A lot has changed in the past year for trainer Brad Cox — not only for the better but stamping him among the best.
Ellis Park racing fans have been able to watch up close the evolution of one of America's hottest trainers since Cox captured his first training title anywhere in 2015 at the Pea Patch, whose 2021 meet begins Sunday and runs through Sept. 4.
In just the year since Cox earned his third Ellis Park training title last summer — this one in a tie with Kenny McPeek at 10 wins apiece — he has:
- won his second Kentucky Oaks with Shedaresthedevil, who captured America's premier race for 3-year-old fillies mere days after the 2020 Ellis meet ended prematurely to accommodate Churchill Downs' pandemic-delayed Kentucky Derby Week.
- won a record-tying four Breeders' Cup races last fall at Keeneland, giving him seven victories overall in horse racing's world championships.
- started off 2021 with the most lucrative victory so far in his burgeoning career with Ellis Park 2-year-old product Knicks Go in Gulfstream Park's $3 million Pegasus World Cup.
- been honored as the 2020 Eclipse Award winner as North America's outstanding trainer. He also had horses earn his fourth and fifth Eclipse Awards as the best in their division, the latest being two-time Breeders' Cup Distaff winner Monomoy Girl and Breeders' Cup Juvenile hero Essential Quality.
- won his first Triple Crown race victory with 2-year-old champ Essential Quality taking the Belmont Stakes. That came five weeks after Cox finished second in his first Kentucky Derby appearance with Mandaloun and a close fourth with Essential Quality. And if the Churchill Downs stewards ultimately disqualify Medina Spirit from his Kentucky Derby first-place finish for a medication infraction, Cox will also have his second Triple Crown race win.
Even as his reputation grows internationally – he's blown well past national recognition — Cox will remain a strong presence at Ellis Park. The track not only provided his first training title but, at that same 2015 meet, the mare Call Pat won the Grade 3 Groupie Doll to give Cox his second victory in a graded stakes.
This summer will be different in one regard for Cox. He won't have the 60 or 70 horses he's had the past few years at Ellis when stall space was plentiful. This summer, with Churchill Downs' backstretch closed for off-season training while a new turf course is installed, overwhelming demand for stabling at Ellis will limit Cox to 38 stalls. Cox, who also has sizable divisions at Indiana Grand and in New York, will send much of his overflow to Turfway Park, which will be open for summer training.
“I think it will impact us a little bit, just from the standpoint of how many we can get in,” Cox said Friday morning at Churchill Downs. “Obviously with Churchill being just two hours away (from Ellis), it will make you think a little bit about shipping from Lexington or Turfway to Ellis with a young horse. But we'll manage it the best we can. We're looking forward to getting started there. We had a good day with our first day of entries, so everything is positive there.”
Cox has four horses entered for Sunday's opening card: three maidens and Swill in an allowance race.
“We're hopeful that we can continue to maintain a lot of starts there like we have the last few years,” he said.
Cox horses expected to run at the meet include Klein Racing's Field Day, winner of three of his last four starts, including in Churchill Downs' William Walker Stakes. Field Day is likely to run July 4 in the $60,000 Dade Park Dash Overnight Stakes for 3-year-olds at 5 1/2 furlongs on turf.
“I'm hoping a bunch of our 2-year-olds will start coming around in regards to be ready to run,” he said. “I'm hopeful we can make a presence with our 2-year-olds. I think we will. We have a good group of colts and fillies that still have to run and that are still going through their paces (training) at Churchill and Keeneland. We're hoping to have one for just about every maiden race there is.
“… The purses there are really good. All the allowance races and maidens are above $50,000. So that's positive and makes for healthy racing in Kentucky through the summer. I'm looking forward to getting things started on Sunday.”
While she won't race at the meet, among Cox's notable horses that will be training at Ellis is Oaks winner Shedaresthedevil. “She's going to point for the Grade 1 race (Clement L. Hirsch) at Del Mar on Aug. 1,” he said. “We'll do pretty much all our training there.”
Even Cox horses that stable but do not run at Ellis Park have been glowing advertisements for the track surface. Monomoy Girl was at Ellis Park all summer before making her first start after the 2017 meet. British Idiom, Cox's 2019 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies winner and 2-year-old filly champion, likewise got much of her preparation at Ellis Park before going to Saratoga to race.
Cox and McPeek again are likely to be regular rivals in Ellis' 2-year-old races, starting with Sunday's sixth race for 2-year-old fillies. McPeek also has had a big year since winning the Ellis title, taking the delayed 2020 Preakness Stakes with Swiss Skydiver, voted the 3-year-old filly champion.
McPeek was a big fan of Ellis Park and its 2-year-old program before it became fashionable. It continued to pay off for him, including Crazy Beautiful launching her career with a debut victory and winning the RUNHAPPY Juvenile Fillies last year. Crazy Beautiful this year won the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Oaks and Santa Anita's Grade 2 Summertime Oaks. McPeek's Grade 1 winners who raced at Ellis at age 2 include Daddys Lil Darling, Rosalind, Java's War, Pure Fun and Noble's Promise.
“It's still for us a really great launching ground for young horses,” he said. “I'm going to be running a lot of 2-year-olds down there. We look forward to those distance 2-year-old races, and I've got a list of other horses set to run down there. I think you'll see us run two or three a day.”
McPeek's horses racing at Ellis Park will ship in to race from Lexington, where he has horses at Keeneland as well as his farm and training center.
Of his 2-year-olds, he said, “This is a really good group. The horses came out of Florida in really good order and we've been waiting for more ground (longer races). We've had a couple of first-time starters win, and I'd like to think we could bring the filly that won (Behave Virginia, May 28 at Churchill Downs) back for the Ellis Park Debutante. That's a great race; Crazy Beautiful won it last year. I have a horse named Tiz the Bomb that's a really good colt.”
McPeek often runs his 2-year-olds in the mile races on turf – not because he thinks they're grass horses but because he buys and trains horses for longer races.
“I like running young horses longer,” he said. “I think they last a little bit better when you run them longer…. I like the distance, and teaching them to go two turns is always a little tricky. The sooner you do it, the better.”
Last year marked McPeek's first training title at Ellis Park, though he's won meet crowns elsewhere.
“I'd been second and third more than a few times,” he said. “… We've always run well there. I'd be curious where I'd be on the all-time list. I've got to be on it somewhere. Thirty-five years of racing at Ellis Park, I haven't missed a summer I don't think.”
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