SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Twice last summer at Saratoga, trainer Chad Brown took down champion mare Idiomatic. Randomized upset her in the Ogden Phipps and Raging Sea bested her in the Personal Ensign, Idiomatic an odds-on favorite both races. Idiomatic’s retired, and on Friday, in the Grade 1, $500,000 Phipps, Brown’s mares turn from hunters into the hunted.
Morning-line maker David Aragona installed Raging Sea as the 5-2 Phipps favorite and has Randomized the 9-2 fourth choice, though one could imagine her dropping lower.
Five others went into the 1 1/8-mile Phipps, including two trained by Todd Pletcher: Candied, the 3-1 second favorite, and 7-2 Leslie’s Rose. Irad Ortiz Jr. rode Leslie’s Rose to a third-place finish in the Grade 3 Vagrancy last out and Candied to victory three weeks ago in the Allaire duPont Distaff. Pletcher said Ortiz wound up on Leslie’s Rose because he and his agent committed to her before it became clear Candied would run here.
Tarifa, Dorth Vader, and Dazzling Move round out a compact field with uncertain pace dynamics. The Phipps is a Win and You're In for the $2 million Breeders' Cup Distaff at Del Mar on Nov. 1.
Randomized, who led from the start in last year’s Phipps, will make a beeline for the lead from post 7. The three races among her 11 in which she didn’t establish a lead produced her three worst performances. But how much horse will jockey Joel Rosario have to use getting there?
“If they’re ahead of her, they’re going way too fast,” Brown said.
Leslie’s Rose exits a May 4 sprint, her first start since July. She has pace and will obtain a forward placing, but Pletcher hopes Ortiz can get outside and stalk Randomized.
Dorth Vader, drawn on the rail, sports a robust 111 TimeformUS early pace number but has been the first-call leader only once in 14 starts.
Dazzling Move set the pace in the duPont before Candied cruised past. She breaks from post 2, and trainer Saffie Joseph Jr., like Pletcher, hopes his horse gets off the inside to track Randomized. But Joseph said Dazzling Move can become rank when stuck behind horses, and she didn’t relax in the duPont. If Dazzling Move can’t find her way outside, Joseph can envision a scenario in which Jose Ortiz has little choice but to go with Randomized.
Brown has this race covered front and back. Loose on the lead at Saratoga, where she won the Grade 1 Alabama two summers ago, Randomized turns into a tigress. Not even Idiomatic could catch her. And if someone pushes Randomized, Raging Sea looms largest.
Brown’s pair exits the Grade 1 La Troienne on May 2 at Churchill Downs, Raging Sea’s first start since November and Randomized’s first since August. Raging Sea won by three-quarters of a length with pacesetting Randomized third, missing second by a head. Both mares needed the outing, Brown said, and will improve, though Randomized wasn’t as far along in her preparation as Raging Sea. Raging Sea won with just an 85 Beyer Speed Figure, low for a Grade 1 and well below her peak.
“It wasn’t a fast race, but it was a good race,” Brown said. “I think we’re going to move forward.”
Leslie’s Rose also should improve making her second start following a layoff of more than 10 months. She comfortably won the Grade 1 Ashland two Aprils ago at Keeneland, loathed a sloppy track finishing 13th in the Kentucky Oaks, and ran second in the Grade 1 Acorn here a year ago behind Thorpedo Anna, who was near the peak of her powers and went on to be named Horse of the Year. By August, when Leslie’s Rose finished up the track in the Coaching Club American Oaks, she had tailed off and needed a break.
Pletcher circled a seven-furlong Keeneland race in April for a comeback but switched to the May 4 Vagrancy going 6 1/2 furlongs at Aqueduct when the Keeneland race didn’t attract enough entries to be carded.
“Hopefully that put some foundation in her,” Pletcher said. “I think she’s a Grade 1-quality filly.”
Candied might be too if she’d ever bring the full breadth of her ability to bear.
“She’s been a little bit frustrating in the sense that we feel there’s a little more there that we just haven’t quite gotten to,” Pletcher said.
Candied won the duPont with speed to spare despite being her usual self – carrying her head too high and failing to switch leads in the homestretch. She can’t make such mistakes and win this race, though Pletcher said jockey Manny Franco has done better than most helping her change leads.
As for leading Friday, Randomized has that covered. Raging Sea will move later. It won’t be an upset, or any kind of surprise, if Chad Brown trains the winner of this Phipps.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.