Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Sierra Leone gives Brown best shot at Derby success
LEXINGTON, Ky. – A relaxed and affable Chad Brown worked several sets of horses Sunday morning at Keeneland, and why wouldn’t Brown be walking on air? Brown had runners Saturday at four racecourses, and from 14 races his stable ended the day with eight winners. Not a bad haul. At Aqueduct, Brown won the Bay Shore with Reasoned Analysis and the Distaff with Shidabhuti, and capped the day here in the Blue Grass Stakes with the most important horse in Brown’s stable right now, Sierra Leone.
Brown has four weeks to keep Sierra Leone happy, healthy, and on his game, and if all goes well on those fronts, Brown will be going to Churchill Downs with his best chance to land his first Kentucky Derby.
So far, so good: Sierra Leone came out of his stirring 1 1/2-length Blue Grass win in good condition, at least as of Sunday. The colt tentatively is scheduled to work back two weekends from now at Keeneland with a final Derby breeze over the Churchill Downs surface. Regardless of how he works, Sierra Leone will be no worse than second choice behind Fierceness in the Derby. Fierceness, a 13 1/2-length winner of the Florida Derby, has speed and a potential tactical edge on Sierra Leone, a onerun closer, but if ever a 3-yearold looked like he would not just cope with but excel at the Derby’s 1 1/4 miles, it’s Sierra Leone.
“He’s subject to the pace a little bit, but the way the Derby looks, there’s plenty of fast horses in there,” Brown said shortly after the Blue Grass.
Fierceness popped a huge 110 Beyer Speed Figure in the Florida Derby. Sierra Leone ran 1 1/8 miles Saturday in 1:50.08 and got a 98 Beyer on a day where figures were difficult to make, according to Andrew Beyer.
Racing over a Keeneland main track that played to frontrunners the first two days of the meet, Sierra Leone was able to sustain a rally the better part of a half-mile. Jockey Tyler Gaffalione said he felt like he was a winner even earlier, with five furlongs left to run.
“He’s explosive,” Gaffalione said. “It was a great schooling race. He’s been schooled in his past races and he’s handled dirt fine; even in the second turn we went inside a couple horses. He’s just push-button.”
The toughest part of Sierra Leone’s day came just before the race, the colt delaying the start several minutes when declining to be loaded into the gate. Drawn on the far outside, Sierra Leone reacted to a big, buzzing crowd that was close at hand, Gaffalione told Brown, and once he became fixated on the fans, it became difficult to turn his mind back to the task at hand.
“He gave us some anxious moments. I don’t anticipate it being a problem,” Brown said Sunday. “I’ll do plenty of gate-schooling with him.”
Sierra Leone is one of four horses from the Blue Grass who could wind up in the Derby.
Blue Grass runner-up Just a Touch ran well for second after racing in closest attendance to the hot pace set by the Browntrained Top Conor. Just a Touch had no answer for Sierra Leone in the final half-furlong, but was making only his third start while racing for the first time around two turns and finishing nearly four lengths clear of third.
Just a Touch has shipped back to trainer Brad Cox’s barn at Churchill and will start in the Derby under Florent Geroux, all being well. Cox plans to work him twice.
“He came out of it good. He ran a big race, contested a live pace. I believe he’ll get a lot out of that,” Cox said.
Blue Grass fourth-place finisher Dornoch now has 75 Derby qualifying points and will start in the race under Luis Saez, said trainer Danny Gargan, who got Society Man into the Derby on Saturday with a second-place finish in the Wood Memorial. Dornoch beat Sierra Leone in the Remsen Stakes and won the Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream, albeit tepidly, in his 3-year-old debut. Gargan said Sunday the colt “ran flat” in the Blue Grass, that his preparation for the race had been
less than ideal, and that an experiment taking the colt back behind horses Saturday revealed that Dornoch reacts poorly to kickback. Dornoch had been the early leader in his last three starts.
“Luis said we just need to keep his face clean. He’ll be right up there next time. I’m real happy with the way he came out of it,” Gargan said.
Epic Ride was no match for the top two but bested Dornoch for third by 1 1/4 lengths while stepping up in class and racing for the first time on dirt. Epic Ride had a productive winter racing over Turfway Park’s Tapeta surface, but is based with trainer John Ennis at the Thoroughbred Training Center on the north side of Lexington, where he does his training on dirt. Ennis came into the Blue Grass confident his horse would race effectively on dirt, and Epic Ride came out of the Blue Grass with 35 qualifying points toward the Derby. As of Sunday, that places him 23rd on the points leaderboard, meaning Epic Ride needs three defections from horses with more points if he’s to make the Derby.
“We’ll train him like he’s going to get into the Derby,” Ennis said Sunday. “But if he doesn’t, that’s fine with me, too.”
Ennis said Epic Ride, despite his favorable showing Saturday, remains an immature colt.
“He’s not the finished product yet at all. I think he’ll be a really good horse in the fall,” Ennis said.
Top Conor stayed on encouragingly for sixth, considering he was making his second career start, facing other winners for the first time, and stretching to 1 1/8 miles from his one-turnmile debut. Top Conor could return to one-turn-mile racing next month at Churchill, with connections considering the Pat Day Mile.
“I think he needs a cutback, that horse,” Brown said. “The jockey was adamant he does.”
Risen Star Beyer upgraded
The Beyer Speed Figure for the Grade 2 Risen Star Stakes run Feb. 17 at Fair Grounds has been upgraded by five points. Originally a 90 for winning that race, Sierra Leone now has a 95. All other horses in the field also received a five-point upgrade.
In explaining the upgraded Risen Star figure, Andrew Beyer said, “The Fair Grounds track was sloppy on Feb. 17, and may have been getting slower when the Risen Star was run. Moreover, the pace of the Risen Star was slow enough to hinder horses from running a fast final time.
“The subsequent performances of horses in the field demonstrated that our initial figure was too low,” he added. “Three of the top five finishers all came back to win important stakes, and all five of these horses earned speed figures five or more points higher than their published numbers for the Risen Star.”
Honor Marie, ‘Phantom’ breeze
Honor Marie and Track Phantom had their first timed workouts Sunday morning at Churchill since finishing second and fourth, respectively, in the Louisiana Derby on March 23. Both horses are being pointed toward the Kentucky Derby.
Honor Marie, working with a maiden winner named Anthem King, went a half-mile in 47.80 seconds, galloping out five furlongs in 1:01.60. Trained by Whit Beckman, Honor Marie won the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill in November and had a light December at Fair Grounds before ramping up into the Risen Star Stakes, where he finished fifth.
Track Phantom went five furlongs in 1:02 working with 4-year-old Gatlinburg. Churchill Downs clockers caught him going out six furlongs in 1:15.20. Second in the Risen Star before his Louisiana Derby fourth, Track Phantom worked in small-cup blinkers, which he has been wearing for daily gallops. Track Phantom hasn’t raced in blinkers but will wear them for the first time in the Derby, trainer Steve Asmussen said.