SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Though Chad Brown is bringing a two-time Grade 1 winner into Thursday’s restricted Curlin Stakes at Saratoga, it is his other, far-less accomplished runner that is likely to garner most of the wagering attention.
Strategic Focus, a horse with only two starts, looms the public choice in the $135,000 Curlin, a 1 1/8-mile race for 3-year-olds that should produce a starter or two for the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers Stakes here on Aug. 23. Brown also runs Chancer McPatrick, last year’s Hopeful and Champagne winner, in this eight-horse field while trying to get him back on track after a thus far disappointing sophomore season.
Strategic Focus, a good-looking chestnut son of Gun Runer, won his debut going a mile by 1 1/4 lengths at Aqueduct on April 19. Stepping up against winners in a first-level allowance going 1 1/8 miles at Saratoga on June 6, Strategic Focus crossed the finish-line first by three-quarters of a length over his Brown-trained stablemate Malarchuk. In a somewhat questionable decision, Strategic Focus was disqualified from first and placed second.
“Lack of experience, reacting to the stick, first time two turns,” Brown said. “It’s a big change running around two turns.”
Had Strategic Focus kept his allowance victory, his résumé would look exactly like that of Unmatched Wisdom, whom Brown won the Curlin with last year at 2-5. Brown has won five of the 15 runnings of the Curlin Stakes.
“I quite liked Unmatched Wisdom last year,” Brown said. “This horse seems to have a little bit more upside. He’s a little different horse physically and he’s certainly bred a lot differently. I would rank this horse certainly above him in terms of his ceiling.”
Flavien Prat, who won the first three races of the meet but has gone 4 for 48 since, has the call on Strategic Focus.
The way the conditions of the Curlin are written – for 3-year-olds which have not won a graded stakes at a mile or over in 2025 – makes two-time Grade 1 winner Chancer McPatrick eligible for this spot.
Chancer McPatrick, who won both his maiden and the Grade 1 Hopeful here last year, is winless in three starts this year, having the unique distinction of dead-heating for sixth in the Blue Grass and seventh in the Woody Stephens. He began the year with a second-place finish in the Tampa Bay Derby.
Brown’s options for Chancer McPatrick were this race or Friday’s Amsterdam Stakes at 6 1/2 furlongs, a distance Brown feels is too short for him.
“Options aren’t good,” Brown said. “See if we can get him back on track and give him one more shot around two turns and some class relief.”
One of the more interesting runners in this field is So Sandy, a son of Omaha Beach trained by Cherie DeVaux. After going 0 for 3 last year and running poorly in a turf try at Fair Grounds in January, So Sandy has won two straight. He took a maiden race by five lengths at Horseshoe Indianapolis before winning a first-level allowance by two lengths at Churchill Downs at the Curlin distance.
DeVaux said So Sandy always looked the part physically, but mentally it took him a while “to connect the dots. I always made the comment, once he puts it together I think he’d be okay. I wasn’t surprised he had a follow-up race like he did at Churchill.”
So Sandy fired a bullet half-mile workout in 48.60 seconds last Friday over the Oklahoma training track.
Todd Pletcher has entered Crudo and Uncaged, with the latter being cross-entered in Friday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Amsterdam Stakes. As of Monday, Pletcher hadn’t finalized in which race Uncaged would run.
Crudo won the restricted Sir Barton Stakes by 7 1/2 lengths at Pimlico on May 17. Back in three weeks in the Belmont Stakes, Crudo couldn’t make the lead and then retreated to last, one spot behind Uncaged.
Hypnus, trained by Kenny McPeek, comes into the Curlin off a first-level allowance win at Churchill on June 1. Prior to that, he faced the likes of Goal Oriented and Gosger, horses who ran right behind Journalism in last Saturday’s Grade 1 Haskell.
Fountain Lake, who finished behind Hypnus and So Sandy in recent allowance tries, and Just a Fair Shake, second to Crudo in the Sir Barton, complete the field.
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