Belmont Park Opener Features a Grade 1 Showdown

Trainer Christophe Clement admits he would have preferred to find any easier spot for the United States debut of Call Me Love than this year's $100,000 Beaugay Stakes (G3T).

Yet with everything that has transpired in New York—and around the world—during the last three months, he's as happy as can be that she will simply get a chance to race June 3 at Belmont Park.

"It's a very tough race but there's no complaints from me," Clement said. "None whatsoever."

Like every other New York-based horseman, Clement understands the importance of Wednesday's card at Belmont Park, when racing will resume in New York for the first time since March 15. After a little more than 2 1/2 months without the sport due to the COVID-19 pandemic, large, competitive fields have become a way of life at re-opening major tracks. While the Beaugay has attracted only six starters, it's a highly select field of fillies and mares that will square off without fans in attendance.

Top-level turf mares such as multiple grade 1 winners Got Stormy and Rushing Fall would normally be seen in the starting gate for a grade 1 stakes, but with the reduced number of stakes opportunities and purse cuts, they will give a Wednesday card at Belmont Park the same feel as a Saturday at Saratoga Race Course.

"It's a very good race," Clement said, "but that's New York."

Yes, finally, it is New York. And to greet the sport, a race that matches Got Stormy and Rushing Fall serves as a fitting stakes for a day that will be remembered as a re-birth after the dark days of the last few months.

"Thankfully, we're back racing. I know the management at (the New York Racing Association)  has worked extremely hard to get racing back going, which I know myself and the rest of the horsemen are really appreciative for," said Chad Brown, who trains Rushing Fall. "I've been back in New York now for a couple of weeks and I feel they're really doing a great job of keeping the backside safe. I feel very comfortable training here. There's a lot of people doing a lot of hard work to get racing up and going again and I'm really looking forward to it."

Getting e Five Racing Thoroughbreds' Rushing Fall back to the races is another reason why Brown is so eagerly looking forward to Wednesday.

A grade 1 winner at 2, 3, and last year at 4, Rushing Fall owns an enviable record of eight wins and two seconds in 11 career starts, but she ended 2019 on a sour note.

After finishing second to 2018 female turf champ Sistercharlie in the Diana Stakes (G1T) at Saratoga, the four-time grade 1 winner went off form, missing the remainder of the Spa meet. She resurfaced in the First Lady Stakes Presented by UK HealthCare (G1T) at Keeneland, where she owns four graded stakes wins (two of them in grade 1 company), but she failed to show her customary early speed and wound up a non-threatening fourth.

The daughter of More Than Ready  was given some freshening at Stonestreet Farm over the winter, which has seemingly brought the 2017 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1T) winner back to top form.

"She's a Hall of Famer at this level and it looks like she's grown into herself," said e Five owner Bob Edwards, who acquired Rushing Fall through agent Mike Ryan for $320,000 from the Taylor Made Sales Agency consignment at the 2016 Saratoga Sale, Fasig-Tipton's select yearling sale. "The First Lady was a bad race all around. She was running against the best of the best and it took a lot out of her to constantly run against Breeders' Cup caliber horses. It caught up with her, but she looks great and she's always won after a layoff."

Rushing Fall, a $2 million earner out of the Forestry mare Autumnal, started her 3- and 4-year-old campaigns with victories, including a score in the 2019 Coolmore Jenny Wiley Stakes (G1T) at Keeneland when Got Stormy finished third in the second of the mares' two meetings. They also faced off in the 2018 Edgewood Stakes Presented by Forcht Bank (G3T) when Rushing Fall was second as the 6-5 favorite and Got Stormy was a length back in fourth at 22-1 odds.

Rushing Fall and jockey Javier Castellano will break from the rail, while Got Stormy and Tyler Gaffalione have post 3.

"She can run any style," Edwards said about his mare. "Javier will put her in the right spot and hopefully she fires."

Since her two losses to Rushing Fall, Gary Barber's Got Stormy has developed into one of the best turf milers of either sex, making Round 3 the most exciting of the matchups and a great centerpiece for a long-awaited day of racing.

"It's a great race for opening day at Belmont," said Mark Casse, who trains Got Stormy. "I'm happy for the fans and (NYRA). There's a lot of positives with this."

Three starts after the 1 1/16-mile Jenny Wiley, Got Stormy beat males in the Fourstardave Stakes (G1T) at Saratoga. Two starts after that, she was game second in the TVG Breeders' Cup Mile (G1T). 

Most recently, she again faced males in the Frank E. Kilroe Mile Stakes (G1T) at Santa Anita Park and was second by a neck.

"She's been training well, but obviously it's not an easy race," Casse said. "Anytime Chad comes to play, he's tough. Rushing Fall is tough, but we're ready."

In her other start at 5, the daughter of Get Stormy  was a highly disappointing fourth against females in the Lambholm South Endeavour Stakes (G3T) at the same 1 1/16-mile distance as the Beaugay. In four starts at 8 1/2-furlongs, Got Stormy's best finish was her third in last year's Jenny Wiley.

"The mile-and-a-sixteenth isn't her best distance but she's effective at it," Casse said. "We're looking to get her back on the winning track and this should set her up nicely for the Just a Game (a grade 1, mile turf stakes, June 27 at Belmont)."

Bred by Mt. Joy Stables, Pope McLean, Marc Lean and Pope McLean Jr. out of the Malabar Gold mare Super Phoebe, Got Stormy sold for $45,000 to Alan Quartucci from the Niall Brennan Stables consignment at the 2017 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale. A winner of eight of 20 starts with earnings of $1,518,078, she was originally bought by Equine Invest for $23,000 from the Pope McLean consignment at the 2016 Keeneland September Yearling Sale.

Brown, in a highly typical move, filled out two entry slips for the graded stakes, and will also run Peter Brant's highly consistent Fifty Five. A 6-year-old daughter of Get Stormy, the New York-bred has won eight of her last 13 starts, but in those five losses she was within a length of the winner.

Fifty Five, New York's champion 3-year-old filly of 2017, will be making her 2020 debut in the Beaugay. She closed out 2019 with a pair of wins as a heavy favorite in state-bred stakes and before that was fourth by a half-length in her last graded stakes appearance, the Woodford Reserve Ballston Spa (G2T).

"With everything that's been set back because of the pandemic, the first New York-bred race for her isn't until later in the summer and we have to get her started," said Brown. "She loves Belmont so we'll see what happens."

A winner of 11 of 22 starts with earnings of $1,033,288, Fifty Five and jockey Joel Rosario landed post 2.

Call Me Love, a 4-year-old daughter of See the Stars, won five of her eight starts in Italy, where she captured a group 2 stakes at 1 1/4 miles Nov. 3 in her last start.

Since joining Clement's stable, she has progressed nicely and turned in a bullet :47.69 turf work May 28 at Belmont to prep for Wednesday's race.

"She has been training forwardly," Clement said about the filly, who will partner with Junior Alvarado from post 4. "She's a very nice and exciting filly. I would have preferred an easier spot but we'll try her in the Beaugay and see if she will need to stretch out next time."

The field also includes Stuart Janney III and Phipps Stable's Passing Out and Augustin Stable's grade 3 winner Xenobia for a stakes that has ramped up the emotions for racing-starved New York fans, most especially the members of the Edwards household.

Cassidy Edwards, the daughter of Bob and Kristine Edwards and one of the five e's in e Five Racing, is dating Gaffalione, and, from the sound of it, the 25-year-old rider should be wary if he receives an invite to visit the Edwards home before the race.

"We're a family divided over this race," Edwards said with a laugh. "Maybe we should invite Tyler to stay here before the race and blare music all night or load him up with carbs."

Family bragging rights on the line, a field with three millionaires, and 10-race card with 130 entries. Say what you want, but it surely appears New York racing has set the stage for for a vibrant welcome back party.