Early Voting

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY--For the last dozen or so years, the competition for the training title at Saratoga Race Course has become the Todd and Chad Show. The next round of the now-annual summer showdown of heavyweights in upstate New York between Todd Pletcher and Chad Brown begins Thursday, the opening day of the 154th season of racing at Saratoga. Pletcher, 55, the all-time leader, will seek his 15th championship, named to honor the late great H. Allen Jerkens. Brown, 43, who just completed a record-smashing Belmont spring/summer season, is seeking...

Three Chimneys Farm's stallion sensation Gun Runner set a new record for progeny earnings by a first-crop sire last year, headlined by six stakes winners including champion Echo Zulu, but the striking son of Candy Ride (Arg) was just getting started in 2021. When Klaravich Stables' Early Voting captured the GI Preakness S., Gun Runner added a fifth tally to his remarkable count of Grade I winners from his first crop. Early Voting's win at Pimlico was worth celebrating at Three Chimneys for more reasons than one. Not only did...

Already a four-time champion trainer, Chad Brown became a two-time Classic-winning conditioner Saturday at Pimlico when his Early Voting (Gun Runner) scored in the GI Preakness S., five years after Brown took down the Preakness using a similar formula with Cloud Computing (Maclean's Music). Tuesday, Brown sat down with the crew of the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland from his headquarters in Saratoga Springs as the Green Group Guest of the Week to talk about his decision to skip the GI Kentucky Derby with Early Voting paying off, why...

Trainer Chad Brown joins this week's TDN Writers' Room to discuss his trio of promising 3-year-old dirt colt, including this weekend's GI Preakness S. winner Early Voting.

Two weeks ago, when I wrote the column "First Crops Yield Derby and Oaks Winners," I'd expected to write about Taiba (Gun Runner) and Secret Oath (Arrogate), the two I'd liked the most in the Gl Kentucky Derby and Gl Kentucky Oaks, respectively. I'd spoken mainly about those two on Steve Byk's popular SiriusXM program "At the Races," and my feeling was that Gun Runner in particular was on a trajectory to get a first-crop Classic winner. His start at stud had been exceptional with his first juveniles, and the...

Most of us have voted early, and voted often, when it comes to the biggest impact recently made by a new stallion--and now, it seems, we've celebrated his official inauguration. Because a Classic winner for Gun Runner rounds out the narrative that so excited everybody last year, when his first juveniles showed such startling speed and precocity relative to his own Horse of the Year campaign, around two turns as a 4-year-old. Sure, Gun Runner himself managed to win his first two (of three) juvenile starts, and then added the...

It was certainly a busy week of action on both sides of the Atlantic. Here's a sample of what went on, and what should be on your radar. Headline Maker... With Early Voting's Classic win at Pimlico Saturday, the colt became Gun Runner's fifth Grade I winner. It's a remarkable stat for any stallion, especially one so early in his stud career. It looks likely the Three Chimneys stallion will vie with the mighty Into Mischief for the honor of being America's most expensive sire over the next few years....

For the second year in a row, the GI Preakness S. was won by a fresh horse who didn't run in the GI Kentucky Derby. Since both of Saturday's top two Preakness finishers--Early Voting (Gun Runner) and Epicenter (Not This Time)--were publicly declared out of the GI Belmont S. even before the last of the crab cakes cooled at Pimlico, it will be up to another relatively rested horse to step up and snag the third jewel of the Triple Crown. That's not an unfamiliar scenario, and recent history tells...

Saturday's GI Preakness S. winner Early Voting (Gun Runner) was back in his stall at Belmont Park by mid-morning Sunday, some 15 hours after scoring a 1 1/4-length victory over favored Epicenter (Not This Time) in Saturday's Middle Jewel of the Triple Crown. Trainer Chad Brown traveled from Baltimore to New York overnight and was at Belmont Sunday to oversee what is typically a busy morning of timed workouts for horses in his stable. During a brief break, Brown said that Early Voting, owned by Seth Klarman's Klaravich Stables, came...

The story is a familiar one. Seth Klarman, Chad Brown and Jose Ortiz teaming up for a win with a lightly-raced colt in the second jewel of the Triple Crown. In 2017, the duo entered the Classic with a fresh horse, and played the spoiler when Cloud Computing (Maclean's Music) upended Classic Empire to take the GI Preakness S. Fast forward to 2022, history repeated itself with the same connections snagging Pimlico's marquee race with Early Voting (Gun Runner). The colt's victory also provided a well-deserved birthday gift for his...

BALTIMORE, MD--Every year, a new batch of sophomores converges upon Pimlico Race Course. And while the names of the contenders is ever changing, the people behind them are remain fairly consistent. Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas casts a very long shadow in the second jewel in the Triple Crown, having won it on six prior occasions. From his first Preakness victory with Codex in 1980, Lukas has gone on to add wins with Tank's Prospect (1985), Tabasco Cat (1994), Timber Country (1995), Charismatic (1999) and Oxbow (2013). One...

Winchell Racing's Epicenter (Not This Time), whose runner-up effort in the GI Kentucky Derby May 7 has earned him a quote of 6-5 morning-line favoritism for Saturday's GI Preakness S., was out for a one-mile gallop around the Pimlico main track Wednesday morning under the watchful eye of Scott Blasi, assistant to trainer Steve Asmussen . "He's traveling really well. It seems like his energy level is good," said Blasi, explaining that Asmussen left the track early to watch horses work at Fasig-Tipton's Midlantic 2-year-olds in training sale at Timonium....