Brown’s stars ready to return

ELMONT, N.Y. – Chad Brown will be well armed when Belmont Park kicks off its spring-summer meet on June 3.

After having many races in which he was looking to run taken away when Keeneland canceled its spring meet, and with Churchill Downs delaying many of its major stakes to September due to the coronavirus pandemic, Brown will have many of his stars make their seasonal debuts at Belmont.

Rushing Fall, the four-time Grade 1 stakes winner, will be pointed to the Grade 3, $100,000 Beaugay on opening day of the 25-day meet. Rushing Fall has not run since finishing fourth in the Grade 1 First Lady last October at Keeneland. She shipped from Florida to Belmont Park on Sunday and on Thursday she worked a half-mile in 49.40 seconds over Belmont’s main track.

“She’s really doing super,” Brown said Friday at his Belmont office.

Brown also is looking at the Beaugay with the New Yorkbred Fifty Five, an eight-time stakes winner. Brown said he also may run a third horse in the Beaugay.

Newspaperofrecord, unraced since last July, could make her return in the Grade 3, $100,000 Intercontinental Stakes on June 6. The Intercontinental, at seven furlongs on turf, also is a possible spot for four-time stakes winner Regal Glory and Significant Form, who won last year’s Intercontinental.

Two of Brown’s top female turf stars are not quite ready to run. Sistercharlie, the female turf champion of 2018, could train up to the Grade 1 Diana at Saratoga as she did last year. Uni, the female turf champion of 2019 following her victory in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, could make her seasonal debut in the Grade 1 Just a Game on June 27 at Belmont.

“Uni had a small splint injury, but she should be breezing soon,” Brown said. “We can still make that race.”

Brown will have a select group from which to choose for the Grade 2, $150,000 Fort Marcy on June 6, including Digital Age, Instilled Regard, Flop Shot, Devamani, and Olympico.

Brown said he plans to run Network Effect, recent twolength winner of the Big Drama Stakes for Florida-breds at Gulfstream, in the Grade 1 Carter, and Payne, a 9 3/4-length winner of a one-mile allowance at Aqueduct on March 13, in the Grade 3, $100,000 Westchester. The Carter, at seven furlongs, and Westchester, at 1 1/16 miles, are both scheduled for June 6.

Brown, at Belmont Friday morning for the first time all year, said he is just happy that New York is about to be up and running again after being shut down for more than two months.

“It’s been frustrating I’m sure for everybody,” Brown said. “We’re anxious to get started, get some of these horses running, and bring in some prize money for all of our clients that have been paying so many bills with very little racing opportunities. My main focus right now is just that – putting my clients in position to recover some of their expenses.”

Mind Control works for Carter

Trainer Gregg Sacco was pleasantly surprised that the New York Racing Association rescheduled the Grade 1 Carter Handicap for June 6, even if the purse had to be cut by $150,000. The race was originally scheduled for April 4 but was one of 19 cards scrapped at Aqueduct due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Sacco is the trainer of Mind Control, who will look to win a Grade 1 race for the third consecutive year when he runs in the Carter. Mind Control has been training at Belmont all year and on Friday he breezed a half-mile in 49.48 seconds over the main track, his ninth breeze since he won the Grade 3 Tom Fool on March 7 at Aqueduct.

“He’s real fit and happy, we’re just trying to keep his mindset right,” Sacco said. “He’s breezed all along, once a week, with nice strong gallops in between. We’re just trying to fine-tune him and get him over there with the right mindset on Carter Day.”

Mind Control won the Grade 1 Hopeful at 2 and the Grade 1 H. Allen Jerkens at 3. In addition to winning the Tom Fool, Mind Control also won the Grade 3 Toboggan in January.

Sacco noted that when Mind Control runs in the Carter, it will be the first time since he won his maiden in August 2018 that he’s run at the same track at which he is based.

Sacco said John Velazquez will ride Mind Control in the Carter.

Others pointing to the race include Performer, Vekoma, Network Effect, Nicodemus, Firenze Fire, and Wicked Trick.

Nicodemus came within a nose of Mind Control in the Toboggan. After two subsequent workouts, Nicodemus suffered an ankle injury and only returned to the work tab on May 6. On Thursday, Nicodemus worked five furlongs in 1:02.58 over Belmont’s training track.

“Last year, Nicodemus won the Westchester, but the Carter is a better distance for him,” trainer Linda Rice said. “Maybe he only won it because of the mud that day.

Wicked Trick had a six-race winning streak snapped when he finished fifth in the Stymie on March 7.

◗ Max Player, the Grade 3 Withers winner, worked six furlongs in 1:13.50 on Friday morning over the Belmont training track in preparation for the Belmont Stakes, to be run June 20.

Rice had considered running Max Player in Saturday’s Matt Winn at Churchill Downs, but that was before NYRA announced the date of the Belmont.

“It looks like we’re going to have plenty of pace,” Rice said of the prospective Belmont field.