Dubai-based team nearly banked a million via Charlie Appleby’s satellite barn – but Kentucky-based trainer stole the show on closing weekend at ths Spa, as Steve Dennis reports
Godolphin made a calculated move to reap a North American harvest this summer, sending an 18-strong cadre of high-class horses trained by Charlie Appleby to their Greentree barn at Saratoga, whence to pick off major races without the need to absorb all those enervating frequent-flyer miles.
The plan paid off, Appleby’s army banking three wins (plus three seconds and three thirds from 12 runners) and almost a million dollars over the course of the meet.
But all the heavy lifting at G1 level was instead done by Yankee natives from Brad Cox’s barn, when they combined on closing weekend for a dream double.
Blue was the colour, winning was the game. On Saturday, the two-year-old filly Immersive (Manny Franco) stepped up from a debut win to take the Spinaway by a comfortable length and a quarter, and 24 hours later Highland Falls made his own breakthrough at the top level with a rampant, romping four-length takedown of the Jockey Club Gold Cup under the inevitable Flavien Prat.
“I thought if one horse could handle the distance, it was him,” said Prat. “It felt like [favorite] Arthur’s Ride was going a bit quicker, easier than me, so I didn’t need to go on, but I was able to get him outside and give him another push. He was just a well of stamina.”
The Jockey Club Gold Cup confers ‘win-and-you’re-in’ status for the $7m Breeders’ Cup Classic so Highland Falls is on his way to Del Mar and a likely clash with Coolmore champ City Of Troy, which will lend quite the European feel to America’s richest race.
“We’ll come up with a game plan, but he’s a cool horse,” said Cox, an attribute that should allow the four-year-old to fit in well with the surf scene in southern California. Immersive is likely to head for the coast too, via the G1 Alcibiades at Keeneland.
“I love her even more now. She is good. She really is. She kind of stamped herself as being good from day one,” added the trainer. “I always thought she’d stretch out – most often Godolphin horses do with their pedigrees, they breed for two-turn horses.”
Godolphin certainly breed for distance, with two turns hard against the left-hand end of the curve that stretches thousands of miles across the globe from Britain to Dubai to Europe to the US to Hong Kong. Travel is intrinsic to the whole operation and no-one does it better – although those Coolmore ‘lads’ are neck-and-neck – and it’s likely that the Saratoga experiment will be repeated, especially as Nations Pride contributed handsomely to running costs by venturing off-campus to win the Arlington Million at Colonial Downs.
Travel broadens the mind, refreshes the appetite, and in this case it has provided Godolphin with an important foothold at the heart of the US racing summer. Sometimes, though, travel simply reinforces the pleasures of home, fosters a greater appreciation of what might tend to be overlooked through over-familiarity.
Sometimes – as Brad Cox, Immersive and Highland Falls showed last weekend – the answer can be found right in your own backyard.
Good karma: Chad Brown
Karma is a capricious courtesan, a tricksy mistress. Last week it was bad, this week it was good for the man from down-the-road Mechanicville, who was transformed into an irresistible force through the final six-day week at the Spa.
Brown sent out 14 winners from 37 starters and brought down the curtain on the meet with the kind of flourish beloved of the most accomplished ringmasters, his strikingly named Chancer McPatrick closing late off a strong pace to nail the G1 Hopeful with barnmate Incentive Pay a game third.
That score was backed up by success in the G2 Flower Bowl with Idea Generation and the G3 With Anticipation with Zulu Kingdom, along with six maiden winners.
“This has been the best meet we’ve ever had,” Brown told the Daily Racing Form. “I’m so proud of my team. We can train any type of horse – any age, any distance, any surface – and we proved it on the biggest stage.”
Bad karma: Bill Mott
On Saturday morning it all looked so promising. By Sunday evening it had all fallen apart like a cheap suit. First, queen of the barn War Like Goddess was a heavy chalk to take the Flower Bowl for a second time, but was run ragged by the rabbit Idea Generation and left with too much to do, her usual powerful closing surge coming up short.
Then, on the other side of the tactics coin, odds-on shot Arthur’s Ride was pressed hard on the pace by Highland Falls in the Jockey Club Gold Cup and had nothing left for the stretch drive, fading back into fifth place.
“I don’t have any big excuse,” said Mott. He didn’t need any. It’s just the way the cookie crumbles; just one of those weekends; that’s racing.
One to watch: Snowyte
It wasn’t a fairytale start for the Good Magic filly, runner-up in a seven-furlong main-track maiden on debut, but happier endings are sure to be on the way given the shape of the race.
Snowyte was on the sharp end of a headlong gallop, 45.14s for the half-mile, and although she held a clear lead at the stretch call all that running had emptied her out, and the more experienced Quickick flashed past late to score.
She was still comfortably clear of the third horse, will know 100% more about the game next time, and Dornoch trainer Danny Gargan could well have another good one in the barn.
Week 8 in numbers
6 Saratoga riding titles for Irad Ortiz, who rode 52 winners
7 straight Saratoga owners’ titles for Seth Klarman’s Klaravich Stables
7 Saratoga training titles for Chad Brown (one shared), with 45 winners
14 wins for Brown this week alone
18 stakes wins (14 in Graded stakes) for Flavien Prat, a meet record
89 years on the clock for the great Wayne Lukas, who trained a winner, Daily Grind, on his birthday on Monday
104 Beyer speed figure for Highland Falls in the Jockey Club Gold Cup
26,951 average daily attendance across the meet
Quotes of the week
“This has been one of the safest meets since I’ve been here in terms of numbers.”
New York Racing Association president David O’Rourke on the relative lack of fatalities compared to last year. There was one on-track death [The Big Torpedo] and two training deaths. The 2023 numbers were nine and four.
“You’re here to set the pace, you’re also here to win, try to do both.”
These were the instructions Chad Brown gave to Florent Geroux before he got up on Idea Generation in the Flower Bowl. He did both, springing a 31-1 upset.
“I love getting on my horse in the mornings. If I ever lose my competitive fire, you’ll be the first to know, because I won’t be around.”
Wayne Lukas lets us into the secret of what keeps him going at the age of 89, keeps him training winners like Monday’s maiden scorer Daily Grind. He’ll be around for a while yet.
“Success at Saratoga is something you want on your resumé, but when you crush the meet like we did this year it speaks volumes about our team.”
John Ortiz has had a superstar summer at the Spa, saddling 12 horses for six wins and the best winning percentage of any trainer with double-figure runners. The victory of Brightwork in the G3 Prioress was the cherry on the cake.
The ‘where are they now?’ file
Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito has won the Kentucky Derby twice, the Preakness once, the Belmont twice, the Travers once, has won twice at the Breeders’ Cup and posted more than 2,000 other wins in a great and glittering career.
Unfortunately, only eight of those wins have come in the last four years as Zito has slipped out of view, to the extent that the question posited in the title is a fair, if forlorn, summary of the situation.
Forgotten, perhaps, but not gone, as the result of the fourth race on Sunday demonstrated.
Zito, 76, was back in the winner’s circle after Unclecharliesgift had re-rallied to win a claimer, his first victory at the Spa since 2019. Just like old times.
“The most important thing is we did it in Saratoga,” he told the Daily Racing Form. “You have to keep hanging in the game, sooner or later it’ll change. We’re doing everything the same, the horse looked beautiful. I’m in the Hall of Fame, thank the Lord, so you know we can do it and you’ve seen me do it a lot of times.
Moment of the meet
Of course there was Fierceness living up to his name in the Jim Dandy and the Travers, and Thorpedo Anna running riot in the Coaching Club American Oaks and almost stealing the Travers.
There was the indefatigable Chad Brown, the unstoppable Irad Ortiz, the stakes monster Flavien Prat.
All contributed hugely to another memorable summer at the Spa, but the Stretch’s decision is final, and the moment that most lit up those 40 days and nights was the success of the phenomenal, photogenic Next in the Birdstone.
He isn’t one for the bettors – he was 1-20 – and he probably isn’t one for the purists either, given that his metier is main-track marathons that are not always notably competitive. But Next is absolutely one for the fans.
“This is Next’s world, he’s all alone. Let him hear it from the crowd, ladies and gentlemen,” declared caller Frank Mirahmadi as Next strolled to victory by more than 22 lengths, and the grandstands rose as one to acclaim the hero of the hour.
See Next next in the Greenwood Cup at Parx on September 21; he won it by 25 lengths last year.
• Visit the NYRA Saratoga website
Week 4: Saratoga’s Olympian: Next and the loneliness of the long-distance runner
Week 3: No excuse needed as the real Fierceness stands up – plus McPeek takes the plunge
Week 1: It’s still Chad Brown’s world at Saratoga … we’re just living in it!
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