A BIG COAST TO COAST WEEKEND FOR CHAD BROWN

Trainer Chad Brown had a big Saturday in New York and Californiaas his charges won the Cigar Mile at Aqueduct and the Hollywood Derby at Del Mar. First of all the Cigar Mile was worth a whopping$750,000 and the hot favorite with Ryan Moore flying in for the mount was the overrated and inconsistent Mendelssohn who went off as the 6-5 favorite. However he was always struggling in the fast run race and finished off the board behind the Brown horse Patternrecognition who was sent off at the generous odds of 6-1 in the eight horse field. Ridden with a high degree of confidence by Jose Ortiz, the son of Adios Charlie led wire to wire to record his biggest career win so far.

Meanwhile about an hour and a half later Brown scored again with Raging Bull, a vastly improving colt who was having his first race out of New York and recorded his first Grade One victory.The $300,000 Turf race used to be run at Hollywood Park where Eastern invaders always seemed to win, and now exactly the same thing is happening at Del Mar.

Brown himself was at Aqueduct, so the winner was saddled by his assistant Jose Hernandez who was very complimentary about the ride Joel Rosario put up on the winner. Raging Bull was always racing comfortably mid pack, and after turning into the stretch showed tremendous acceleration to get up and beat the classy River Boyne by ½ length with another Brown horse, Instilled Regard third. Owner Peter Brant was at Del Mar to see his handsome son of Dark Angel win his fifth race from seven starts,and he looks to be a real force next year in turf races.
Speaking of Joel Rosario, he is moving his base of operation back to California for the Santa Anita winter meeting, and no doubt his services will be in very high demand. Also speaking of Santa Anita, they fired the announcer Michael Wrona unexpectedly who was on a two year contract along with the respected racing secretary Rick Hammerle who had been at the track for even longer. There are legal battles between owner Frank Stronach and his daughter over embezzlement
issues and it looks like these folks along with others no doubt are the first of many casualties.