Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Newspaper of record likely getting a break before next
ELMONT, N.Y. – Having posted career-best efforts twice in three weeks, Newspaper of record will likely get a brief break before attacking a series of prestigious one-mile turf races for fillies and mares later this year, trainer Chad Brown said Sunday.
Newspaper of record returned to her Grade 1-winning form Saturday, cruising to a threelength victory in the Just a Game at Belmont Park. Never rank or difficult to handle, Newspaper of record got away with a relatively soft pace and kicked clear of the competition to record the victory. It was her first Grade 1 score since she won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Churchill Downs in 2018. She is 5 for 8 overall, all for owner Seth Klarman’s Klaravich Stables.
“I’m so happy for the horse first and foremost and of course for Mr. Klarman,” Brown said. “He had every opportunity to sell her as a broodmare and just move on if he thought she was just a good 2-year-old only, and he stayed with her and committed her for the season and let our team work with her, and she really responded well. She never looked better, trained better. There’s a lot of different people went into working with her to make that happen.”
After going 3 for 3 at 2, Newspaper of record went 0 for 3 last year at 3. She has won both the Just a Game and Grade 3 Intercontinental this year. She earned a 105 Beyer Speed Figure for the Just a Game, two points higher than her figure for the Intercontinental, which was run June 6.
“She certainly ran career tops in every relevant figure,” Brown said. “I’m sure she’s going to have some space between now and her next start.”
While Brown didn’t totally discount running Newspaper of record in the Grade 1,$400,000 Fourstardave on Aug. 22 at
Saratoga, that race would be too close to the Grade 2, $500,000 Churchill Downs Distaff Turf Mile, which will be run on the Sept. 5 Kentucky Derby Day card at Churchill Downs. Grade 1 stakes such as the First Lady at Keeneland and the Matriarch in November at Del Mar also are long-term goals.
Among the horses Newspaper of record beat in the Just a Game was her stablemate Uni, the champion female turf horse of 2019, who finished third. Uni had not run since winning the Breeders’ Cup Mile last November at Santa Anita and missed some training time this spring due to a splint bone injury. Rain fell during Saturday’s card, which may have taken some of the firmness out of the Belmont turf.
“She’s run okay with some give in the ground in the past, but her brilliant performances have been on very firm ground,” Brown said. “I’m okay to draw a line through that and really use it as a first race back and move forward.”
If the turf is firm, Uni could be a candidate for the Fourstardave, a race in which she finished third in 2019.
Mean Mary points to Diana
Trainer Graham Motion may have found his Diana horse in Mean Mary.
Mean Mary recorded her fourth consecutive victory by taking Saturday’s Grade 2, $250,000 New York Stakes by 5 1/4 lengths. After getting away with a relatively easy pace, she powered home her last quarter in 22.64 seconds under Luis Saez. She earned a careerbest 101 Beyer Speed Figure.
“She just galloped them into
the ground,” Motion said. “She really has a high cruising speed. It looked kind of effortless for her.”
Mean Mary added the New York, at 1 1/4 miles, to graded stakes victories in the Orchid at 1 3/8 miles and the La Prevoyante at 1 1/2 miles. She began her win streak with an allowance win at 1 1/8 miles, which is the distance of the Diana.
Motion had mentioned the Grade 3, $150,000 Waya Stakes at 1 1/2 miles on Aug. 8 as a possible start, but said that race “doesn’t get me to where I want to go. I’d like to go to the Breeders’ Cup.”
The $2 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf on Nov. 7 at Keeneland is run at 1 3/16 miles.
Motion said his “gut is the Diana” on Aug. 23 at Saratoga. “It’s a long way off, but I’d like to have her fresh for the fall.”
Motion has finished second in the Diana five times.
– David Grening
Tough trip home for ‘Victim’
Victim of Love got a bad trip Saturday. Fortunately for trainer Todd Beattie, the traffic issues occurred that evening on the van trip from Belmont Park back to his barn at Penn National and not during the running of the Grade 3 Vagrancy, which Victim of Love won at odds of 27-1 in a race run during a driving rainstorm.
Victim of Love was the longest shot on the board in the 6 1/2-furlong Vagrancy, contested over a racetrack officially downgraded to good due to intermittent showers throughout the afternoon that worsened drastically as the field left the gate for the first of four graded stakes on Saturday’s card. Victim of Love, runner-up in the Grade 3 Barbara Fritchie earlier this winter at Laurel but exiting a poor performance going a mile in her subsequent start, sat a perfect pace-stalking trip in the Vagrancy. She forged to the lead under jockey Jose Lezcano in early stretch before gradually edging away to a 1 3/4-length decision over heavily favored Come Dancing.
Victim of Love, a 4-year-old daughter of Speightstown, received an 86 Beyer Speed Figure, matching a career high previously set in the Barbara Fritchie.
“She had a long trip coming back home last night due to a bad wreck on I-78. She had to sit in traffic about four hours on the highway and didn’t get back until midnight,” Beattie said by phone Sunday morning. “But she’s doing about as good as she can this morning, considering what she went through last night.”
Beattie said he wasn’t surprised by Victim of Love’s victory, despite the long odds.
“I really thought she had a legitimate shot,” Beattie said. “I knew she liked the distance, I think 6 1/2 to seven furlongs suits her best, and she had been doing really well, showing me a lot in the morning going into the race. And she’d had some extra time off following her previous start because of the Covid, which is never a bad thing.”
Beattie admitted he didn’t mind the stormy conditions that prevailed as the race unfolded.
“I was actually doing a rain dance because I knew she liked the mud. She’d already won in it once before,” Beattie said. “She’s a Speightstown, and they all seem to like the wet tracks. And she’s the kind of horse who handles adversity really well. If I had to be on a horse running under those conditions, she’d be the one I’d want to be sitting on.”
Beattie said he’s not yet mapped out any plans for Victim of Love’s next start.
“A brutal trip like she had getting back can take a lot out of you, so we might have to give her an extra couple of weeks off,” Beattie said. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
Firenze Fire to Vanderbilt
Firenze Fire had no issues getting back to his stall following a 1 1/2-length tally over Stan the Man about an hour later in the Grade 2 True North. Firenze Fire is stabled at Belmont Park with a division of trainer Kelly Breen’s barn.
Winning the True North was vindication of sorts for Firenze Fire, coming just three weeks after his distant fourth-place finish in the Grade 1 Carter in his first start since joining Breen’s barn during the spring following the indictment of former trainer Jason Servis on charges of administering illegal medication to horses.
“I got really worried when it started pouring about an hour before the race because I thought it was déjà vu all over again since he showed me in his previous start [the Carter] that he doesn’t really seem to like an off track,” Breen said. “Fortunately, the track was harrowed and fast by the time we ran, and I’m just very glad everything worked out and he ran his race yesterday.
Firenze Fire was the fourth of five winners on the card for jockey Irad Ortiz Jr., who has been his regular rider for much of the past 13 months but was not aboard for the Carter. Firenze Fire earned a 97 Beyer.
“Irad came back after the race and said that was him out there today, and I was really excited to hear that,” Breen said. “The Vanderbilt will be the next spot at Saratoga, with the Breeders’ Cup [Sprint] what we’re aiming for as his major objective this year.”
The Grade 1 Vanderbilt will be run July 25 at Saratoga.
– Mike Welsch