Winning 1st place tends to build a strong bond between horses and their trainers.
However, for coach Chad Brown, that weakness in his heart is deeper than usual with his top 3-year-old infant. McKulick .
For all the joy Brown feels after McKulick’s 3/4-length win first With The Moonlight in the Belmont Oaks Invitational Stakes (G1T), what brings out the emotion of the moment is that the daughter of Frankel Named for a special person in Brown’s life.
Back when Brown started training in 2007, the first person he hired was Mary McKulick to handle his bookkeeping. For 13 years they worked together as a team until McKulick decided to retire in 2020, but then, not long after, she sadly passed away at the age of 67.
Naming the talented girl by Klaravich Stables is just one of the ways Brown keeps his memory.
“I was thinking of her,” Brown said of his longtime friend and right-hand man after McKulick rose from fifth to capture Belmont Oaks July 9 from a quarter mile on the field. grass.
McKulick will be on Brown’s mind again on August 7 as the 1st place winner bearing her name targets the second round of the New York Racing Association Tricycle Championship for 3-year-olds, face five opponents in the $700,000 Saratoga Oaks Invitational Stakes (G3T) at Racecourse Saratoga.
“We always thought she was a nice person, especially at that quarter of a mile,” Brown said. “Time’s a little tight but she’s made it through really well and we’ll be right back in the second leg of the series.”
McKulick won on August 8 of her career at Saratoga a year ago, then finished third in the Miss Grillo Stakes (G2T) competition before a shin problem ended her 2-year-old season. that. In her two 2022 starts against Belmont Oaks, she finished second behind Saratoga Oaks starters in both Regret Stakes (G3T) and Edgewood Stakes (G2T), both in Churchill Downs.
She was purchased by agent Mike Ryan for Brown and Klaravich Stables at the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale for $245,370 from a Hazelwood Bloodstock shipment. She was bred in Great Britain by Essafinaat UK out of Makfi Astrelle mare.
Brown also joined Bobby Flay’s Contemporary art and Little Red Feather Racing’s Oakhurst in 1 3/16 miles Saratoga Oaks.
Contemporary art was last seen winning the first race on June 17 with a length of 4 and a half at Belmont Park in the purebred daughter of Dubai the second begins, while Oakhurst (Mr Speaker ) placed second in the last one-mile Wild Applause Stakes on the field.
“It was a step up in class for both of them, but 1/16 of a mile looks good for Contemporary Art,” Brown said.
Godolphin’s With The Moonlight appeared to have gone to the winner’s circle in Belmont Oaks as she took the lead midway through her first race in America, but Frankel’s purebred daughter was able to fend off McKulick’s late kick and come in second. .
Coached by Charlie Appleby, she has won three of her seven starts, with one of those victories being at the 1/4 mile in Great Britain.
The half-blood of Whitham Thoroughbreds Walkathon beat McKulick in Regret, squeezing speed from second on her bet debut and winning by 1 1/4 by length. Daughter of Spinning candy won her last three starts for coach Ian Wilkes.
The field also features Marc Detampel and Fergus Galvin’s Eve a daughter of Kitten’s Joy, who beat McKulick in Edgewood by 2 3/4 length but finished eighth in the Belmont Oaks for coach Brendan Walsh.
Item: Saratoga Oaks Invitational S. (G3T)
Racecourse SaratogaSunday, August 7, 2022, Race 7
- Level IIIT
- 1 3 / 16m
- Turf
- $700,000
- 3 yo Fillies
- 4:29 pm (local)
