Turf and dirt, Belmont Stakes Day turned out well for trainer Chad Brown.
Three-year-old filly Search Results won the Grade 1 Acorn over one mile on dirt, while Brown ran one-two in the Grade 1 Manhattan as Domestic Spending assumed a clear position as North America’s best grass horse with a comfortable win over the Brown-trained pacesetter Tribhuvan.
Brown’s trio of runners in the Grade 1 Just a Game fared less well. Regal Glory turned in a solid performance to get fourth, but 5-2 favorite Pocket Square was a one-paced fifth while Tamahere, caught wide from an outside post, faded to ninth.
“Pocket Square got a beautiful trip and didn’t fire, which was the big disappointment of the day for me because she couldn’t have trained any better. It had to have been the ground,” Brown said.
Turf races Saturday at Belmont were contested over a course labeled “good.” On a hot, sunny day, the course dried throughout the afternoon after taking rain throughout the week and coming up soft (though officially labeled yielding) for Friday’s grass races.
There was nothing at all disappointing about Domestic Spending, Brown’s seventh Manhattan winner, and a fairly easy one at that. Flavien Prat gave Domestic Spending a patient, clean trip racing from seventh place during the middle stages and Domestic Spending beat Tribhuvan, who set a fast pace and held very well for second, by nearly three lengths. The final time of 1:59.08 yielded a career-best 106 Beyer for an improving 4-year-old. Domestic Spending now has won six of his seven starts and took a step forward Saturday from his 2021 debut, when he dead-heated with Colonel Liam for a win in the Grade 1 Old Forester Turf Classic at Churchill.
“He bided his time, very patient, and he’s got quite a good turn of foot,” Brown said. “He’s a horse who can get a good position, never going to fall out the back.”
Brown and owner Klaravich Stable won the 2019 Manhattan with Bricks and Mortar, who went on to capture the Arlington Million before stretching to 1 1/2 miles for the first time and winning the Breeders’ Cup Turf. Domestic Spending’s season will follow the same path, Brown said, with the race that used to be called the Million, the $600,000 Mister D. Stakes on Aug. 14, likely to be the gelding’s next spot.
Tribhuvan, racing as a gelding for the second time and running right back to a sharp win in the Fort Marcy Stakes, came out of the Manhattan in good shape and could be aimed toward the United Nations Stakes over 1 3/8 miles on July 17 at Monmouth. “Maybe just keep stretching him out on the lead? No decisions yet, but that’s a race that makes a lot of sense for him,” Brown said.
Search Results got a 95 Beyer for running a one-turn mile in 1:35.50, beating strong-closing Obligatory by a half-length in the Acorn for her first Grade 1 win. Also owned by Klaravich, Search Results, a daughter of Flatter, was coming off a close second to Malathaat in the Kentucky Oaks, a race run around two turns over 1 1/8 miles.
“She ran super. Coming out of the race you got to think about whether you go back to a mile and an eighth, because she ran so well in the Oaks, or do you stay with one turn and think about a race like the Test?” Brown said.
The seven-furlong, Grade 1 Test is run on Aug. 7 at Saratoga. The 1 1/8-mile Coaching Club American Oaks comes up July 24 at Saratoga.
Brown also has hopes for Soft Power, a 3-year-old Invincible Spirit colt who won a tight win photo going seven furlongs on grass in Saturday’s second race, his career debut. Brown said if possible he’d run Soft Power, who got an 84 Beyer, in a first-level, one-mile allowance race to ready the colt for Saratoga stakes competition.
