Bracket Buster has returned to Kentucky following his career-best performance winning the Pegasus Stakes last Saturday at Monmouth Park – but another trip to the Jersey Shore could very well be possible.
Bracket Buster rolled by seven lengths in the Pegasus, geared down late while earning a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 91. The race was the local prep toward the Grade 1 Haskell Stakes on July 19, and both Bracket Buster and the runner-up, longshot Wildncrazynight, receive free entry to the race as a result.
“He’s back here in Lexington and came out very good,” said trainer Vicki Oliver, who trains Bracket Buster for BBN Racing. The Haskell is “a possibility, yes. We’ll have to see who’s going there and in some of the other 3-year-old stakes, but that is a possibility.”
In his first start since October, Bracket Buster finished a good second in the Grade 3 Lexington Stakes on April 12 at Keeneland, beaten two lengths by Gosger after leading. Gosger flattered the performance with a strong runner-up effort in the Preakness Stakes.
In his second start of the year, over a sloppy, sealed track on May 3 at Churchill Downs, Bracket Buster finished seventh in an allowance/optional-claiming race won by Goal Oriented, who went on to finish fourth in the Preakness.
“I think I ran him back too quick,” Oliver said. “And I think the track was really, really cuppy, really sticky. It was a different kind of sloppy track, and all the jocks said it was really, really deep on the inside, and that’s where he was. So it just wasn’t our day.”
The Pegasus was contested on a sloppy, sealed track of a different consistency. Bracket Buster scored his second win from seven career starts.
“He’s matured quite a bit,” Oliver said. “He’s a late May foal, so he still has some maturing to do. But he’s matured a lot since the beginning of the year.”
His familiar foe Gosger, also Kentucky-based, continues to train toward a potential start in the Haskell for Brendan Walsh. Gosger was beaten just a half-length by Journalism in the Preakness after opening a large lead in the stretch. He has since turned in a pair of half-mile breezes at Churchill.
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