Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Brown reflects on BC success
ARCADIA, Calif. – Chad Brown’s reward for winning three Breeders’ Cup races at Santa Anita was a red-eye flight to New York, where he trained horses at Belmont Park Sunday morning and made the eightmile drive to Aqueduct to saddle Autonomous, a 2-year-old filly, in the opener. Naturally, Autonomous won.
On the drive, Brown, sounding a little sick, reflected on his sensational success at the Breeders’ Cup, where he won three races from eight runners and may very well have left California with a bona fide Horse of the Year.
When Bricks and Mortar persevered past longshot United to win the $4 million Breeders’ Cup Turf, it capped a 6-for-6 campaign for the 5-yearold son of Giant’s Causeway, who missed 14 months due to a neuromuscular disease known as stringhalt. Since returning last December, Bricks and Mortar has won all seven of his starts.
While the win certainly clinches an Eclipse Award as male turf champion, Bricks and Mortar is now among the leaders for Horse of the Year, an award that likely will be between him, the sprinter/ miler Mitole, and the fabulous filly Midnight Bisou. Mitole won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, while Midnight Bisou suffered her first loss of the year running second in the Distaff.
Bricks and Mortar added the BC Turf to earlier Grade 1 victories in the Arlington Million, Manhattan, Turf Classic, Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational, and the Grade 2 Mervin Muniz Memorial.
“I’m very proud of his body of work. He’s won at many different tracks and distances. He’s been a model of consistency,” Brown said. “Given his record and his campaign versus everything else that happened around him at the Breeders’ Cup, I think he has to be the strong favorite to receive that prestigious award.”
Bricks and Mortar is done racing. He retires with a record of 11 wins from 13 starts and career earnings of $7,085,650. He was due to ship to Kentucky on Monday where he will do about a month’s time in quarantine before heading to Japan. Beginning in 2020, Bricks and Mortar will stand at stud at Shadai Farm.
Brown called replacing Bricks and Mortar “daunting.”
Brown’s other Breeders’ Cup victories came with Uni, who defeated males and the filly Got Stormy in the $2 million Mile, and Structor, who won Friday’s $1 million Juvenile Turf.
Uni’s victory, coupled with her win in the Grade 1 First Lady at Keeneland in October, puts her in the conversation for female turf champion along with the Brown-trained Sistercharlie, last year’s female turf champion who finished third in Saturday’s Filly and Mare Turf, ending her streak of six successive Grade 1 wins.
Brown said he would let the voters decide who should be voted champion.
“Both fillies had really outstanding years. We’ll just have to see how it ends up,” said Brown, who is also favored to win his fourth consecutive Eclipse Award as champion trainer.
It also remains to be seen what the futures are for both females. Uni, a 5-year-old daughter of More Than Ready, is likely to stay in training next year. Brown said he is not in favor of running her again this year – the Grade 1 Matriarch at Del Mar on Dec. 1 had been mentioned after the Breeders’ Cup.
“Although she’s not raced a lot, she’s had some hard races,” Brown said. “We missed the Just a Game [this] year because of how hard a race she had in the Matriarch, so my advice is to stop a little sooner and hit that race, which is a race I really want to hit.”
The Just a Game is typically run on Belmont Stakes Day, in early June.
Brown said Sistercharlie would be sent to Payson Park while her owner Peter Brant – who also happens to be the new owner of Payson Park – decides whether to race or breed her next year. Sistercharlie, a 5-year-old, has run only 15 times, winning 10.
Brown said both he and jockey John Velazquez felt the Santa Anita turf course may have been too firm for her liking on Saturday, when she finished third, 2 1/2 lengths behind Iridessa. Without Parole, third in the Mile, will likely be sent to Florida while owners John and Tanya Gunther decide his future. A Group 1 winner last year at 3, Without Parole has only made one start in the U.S. Brown said if Without Parole remains in training, he would like to point him to the $7 million Pegasus Turf at Gulfstream in January.
Structor, who won the Juvenile Turf on Friday, was to be sent to Palm Meadows in South Florida. After a break he could be pointed to a dirt race early in 2020 to see if he would be able to jump on the Triple Crown trail. Structor is by Palace Malice, a Belmont Stakes winner out of the dam Miss Seffens, whose lone win came over a sloppy track at Belmont.
As for Brown’s other Breeders’ Cup runners, Dunbar Road and Wow Cat finished fifth and seventh in the Distaff while Selflessly finished fifth in the Juvenile Fillies Turf.
Wow Cat is cataloged to be sold Tuesday at the Fasig-Tipton auction. Dunbar Road and Selflessly will be both pointed to 2020 campaigns.
Brown’s three Breeders’ Cup victories give him 13 over the last six years and 15 overall, tying for second with Bob Baffert. D. Wayne Lukas has 20 Breeders’ Cup wins.
Brown’s eight horses earned $4,320,000 at the Breeders’ Cup and pushed his 2019 purse earnings to $29.4 million, a singleyear record for a North American-based trainer with two months remaining in the year.
Brown said it’s special to win at Santa Anita, where he worked for Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel for several years. Brown said his first stop when he landed in Southern California on Monday was to visit Frankel’s grave.
“I always go see Bobby. I brought my staff there when we landed,” Brown said. “It’s a real special place. I also find it brings me a great deal of luck.”