Dynamic One earned his black-type badge with an upset of previously undefeated and heavily favored First Captain in the Curlin S. at Saratoga Friday, one of two local preps for the Aug. 28 GI Runhappy Travers S. Trailing the field early as longshot Snow House (Twirling Candy) clocked an opening splits of :23.63 and :47.34 with Beren (Weigelia) pressing from his outside hip and First Captain leading the second flight in fifth. Splitting rivals four wide turning for home with the field fanned out across the track, the chestnut moved into second behind new leader Miles D in early stretch and charged past that rival in the final sixteenth to score. Miles D held second over First Captain.
“There looked to be an honest pace on paper and we just wanted to let him settle,” winning trainer Todd Pletcher said. “He actually settled back and dropped over to last. He was able to save some ground around the first turn from the seven post. I could tell down the backstretch that he was travelling really well and that Irad [Ortiz, Jr.] had a lot of horse. He said when he tested him to see where he was around the half-mile pole, he still felt like he had a lot of horse, so he waited a little longer and waited longer down the lane.”
As for a potential start in the Travers, Pletcher said, “I think he definitely showed that he is capable of stepping up and we were looking at this as a potential Travers prep and he gave us everything we could have hoped for today.”
Graduating at fourth asking with a decisive score going nine panels at Aqueduct Mar. 7, Dynamic One missed by a head to stablemate Bourbonic (Bernardini) next out in that venue's GII Wood Memorial S. Apr. 3. He failed to fire last out in the May 1 GI Kentucky Derby, finishing a well-beaten 18th.
Dynamic One is the 20th black-type winner for his sire Union Rags and the 130th stakes victor out of a daughter of Smart Strike. The winner's dam Beat the Drums is a daughter of champion Storm Flag Flying (Storm Cat), who in turn is out of MGISW My Flag (Easy Goer). This is also the family of recent graded winners Performer (Speightstown) and Jouster (Noble Mission {GB}). Beat the Drums is also responsible for the unraced juvenile colt Videri (Honor Code) and a 2021 colt by Ghostzapper. She was bred back to Street Sense.
Friday, Saratoga
CURLIN S., $120,000, Saratoga, 7-30, (C), 3yo, 1 1/8m, 1:49.36, gd.
1–DYNAMIC ONE, 118, c, 3, by Union Rags
1st Dam: Beat the Drums, by Smart Strike
2nd Dam: Storm Flag Flying, by Storm Cat
3rd Dam: My Flag, by Easy Goer
($725,000 Ylg '19 KEESEP). 1ST BLACK TYPE WIN. O-Repole
Stable, Phipps Stable & St. Elias Stable; B-Phipps Stable (KY);
T-Todd A. Pletcher; J-Irad Ortiz, Jr. $66,000. Lifetime Record:
GSP, 7-2-2-0, $260,120.
2–Miles D, 118, c, 3, Curlin–Sound the Trumpets, by Bernardini.
($470,000 Ylg '19 KEESEP). O-Peter M. Brant & Robert V.
LaPenta; B-River Bend Farm (KY); T-Chad C. Brown. $24,000.
3–First Captain, 124, c, 3, Curlin–America, by A.P. Indy.
($1,500,000 Ylg '19 FTSAUG). 'TDN Rising Star' O-West Point
Thoroughbreds, Siena Farm LLC, Bobby Flay & Woodford
Racing, LLC; B-B. Flay Thoroughbreds (KY); T-Claude R.
McGaughey III. $14,400.
Margins: 1 3/4, 7, 1 1/4. Odds: 3.25, 8.20, 1.35.
\Also Ran: Harvard, Snow House, Collaborate, Beren.
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