Search Results running away with the Grade 3 Molly Pitcher at Monmouth Park. (Bill Denver/EQUI-PHOTO)
Search Results Takes Curtain Call in Longines BC Distaff
Randomized On the Improve for Distaff
Breeders’ Cup Notes
Klaravich Stables’ Search Results brings her classy career to an end in the Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff (G1) and trainer Chad Brown is hoping she has saved the best for last in the 1 1/8-mile, $2 million affair. Exiting a one-sided and confidence-building victory in Churchill Downs’ Locust Grove (G3) on Sept. 16, the daughter of Flatter was full of herself in her first Santa Anita appearance on Monday, having shipped from New York with the rest of the Brown brigade on Sunday.
“It’s really bittersweet for her because she’s in the absolute top form of her life going into her last career start,” Brown said. “It’s good because it’ll be the biggest race of her career—she’s been in some big ones like the Kentucky Oaks and last year’s Breeders’ Cup—but for her coming into this race, she’s never been training this well.”
A seven-time winner from 16 starts, including a win in the 2022 Acorn Stakes (G1), the earner of $1,903,810 has placed in no less than six Grade 1s, including the 2021 Kentucky Oaks (G1) and both the Ogden Phipps and La Troienne this season. A stalker in most of her career starts, she employed front-running tactics to gain her first win of 2023 last out.
“It figures to set up for her a bit, as she prefers a target,” Brown continued. “She did win wire-to-wire last time, showing her versatility, but her best trip is with a target. With lots of pace signed on here, she could prove tough to beat.
“If I have to say one thing about her, it’s that I’m very, very confident that she’s going to run the race of her life, but with one caveat: she doesn’t always take her racetrack with her,” he continued. “I’m not certain about Santa Anita. If she likes it and takes to it, she’s going to be right there. If she doesn’t, she won’t. She’s run well on several tracks but doesn’t always take her track with her. For example, Keeneland she didn’t like, so her form elsewhere is pretty good.”
In last year’s Distaff at Keeneland, Search Results prompted the pace and faded to finish sixth of eight — the only time she has finished out of the money.
“Is she doing better this year? Yes. Not that she was doing bad last year, but she’s just doing that well this year and she really didn’t like Keeneland,” Brown concluded. “She’s been close in mile and an eighth races against good fillies, too. That race in the Oaks against Malathaat was outstanding and she beat some really good fillies behind her. When she has been beaten at this distance, it’s normally by fillies who are the top of the class.”
Randomized On the Improve for Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff
Progress is anything but arbitrary for a sophomore filly such as Klaravich Stables’ Randomized, especially when in the barn of 16-time Breeders’ Cup-winning trainer Chad Brown. The daughter of 2015 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) winner Nyquist has come forward impressively with time, going from a maiden winner in late March to a three-time stakes winner going into the Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff (G1).
A four-time winner from six starts, the $420,000 Keeneland September purchase is undefeated when setting the pace but enters a Distaff renewal that appears flush with front-runners, thus presenting a natural quandary for the last-out Beldame Stakes (G2) winner.
“We’ll try to break forward—hopefully she gets a clean break and gets out there—and she can make the lead, which is ideal,” Brown said. “It’s not going to be absolute-at-all-costs to make the lead if someone else is really overly aggressive to get there, so we’ll find out then and there if she’s just as effective rating.
“I have a feeling she’d be fine doing that from close range, but what I don’t want is to see her behind horses,” Brown continued. “I don’t think that suits her well. That happened in the Acorn (G1). Then again, she’s filled out quite a bit since then and that was Belmont, which can be a tricky track. I’m not certain what exactly went wrong there, but one thing was she found herself behind horses and we don’t want to experiment on the biggest stage doing that if we don’t have to.”
In June’s Acorn Stakes (G1), on Belmont Stakes Day, Randomized was unable to secure the lead and finished sixth of eight in what was her first start since her March graduation. She returned five weeks later to win the 1-mile Wilton Stakes at Saratoga, with another five-week gap to the Alabama (G1), where she won gate-to-wire by an impressive 4 lengths, dismissing top-class 3-year-old filly and Distaff hopeful Wet Paint in the process. Her aforementioned Beldame followed, where she won in the same fashion and appeared to have more left in the tank—something for which Brown is markedly hopeful.
“That race was something to see,” Brown said. “I believe, with 3-year-olds, the hope that you have is that they’re improving still, unlike the older horses. While the favorites in a lot of these divisions and rightfully so, older horses have usually seen their best numbers. Often those numbers are the best to win, but with 3-year-olds, there’s hope that there’s more room and there generally is. If it’s on this next race, that’s the big question.
“I like the way she finishes and runs all the way, which makes her dangerous,” he concluded. “She’s that old-fashioned type of horse that might just forget to stop.”
