McKulick Runs Down With The Moonlight in Belmont Oaks

Chad Brown is the king of grass routes, especially at Belmont Park, which he’s been dominating like never before. So it was no surprise when he walked into the winner’s circle there July 9 to pick up another trophy.

The superstar trainer had targeted the $700,000 Belmont Oaks Invitational Stakes (G1T) for McKulick , and the 3-year-old filly made the plan come together, as Brown’s often do. She swept four-wide into the stretch under Irad Ortiz Jr., passed pace-presser With The Moonlight  approaching the sixteenth pole, and drew off by 1 3/4 lengths. With The Moonlight, like McKulick a daughter of the great stallion Frankel , held off Brown’s Consumer Spending  by a head for second.

“I had a beautiful trip,” Ortiz said. “We broke well, saved ground, and got great position. When I asked her to roll, she took off. I think the difference was the distance. If you see her last two races when she was second, she came running late past the wire and kept galloping out nicely. We were very confident she would get a mile and a quarter, so I rode her with confidence and she got it done.”

Brown agreed with Ortiz, who rode his third winner of the day. Both thought the graded stakes at 1 1/16 and 1 1/8 miles this spring at Churchill Downs weren’t long enough for McKulick to show her best.

“She really was born to run a mile and a quarter, and in the races at Churchill, she didn’t get the pace setup she needs,” Brown said. “We’ve been waiting for a long time to run her this far, and we had this race picked out as her main target of the season. She’s special, and she finally got enough room to fully utilize that closing kick she has. Irad just rode a beautiful race.”

Like McKulick’s trip, everything else came together for Brown, whose mentor was Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel, who died in 2009. The 3-year-old filly was named for Mary McKulick, whom Brown hired in 2007 when he left Frankel to go out on his own.

“Mary was my bookkeeper,” Brown said. “She died last year. I’m thinking of her. It’s an extra-special win with it being Bobby Frankel’s birthday today.”

The posted time for 1 1/4 miles on a firm course was initially 1:55.38, which would have been a world record by many lengths and clearly was wrong. Interior fractions also seemed incorrect.

Hall of Famer Mike Smith, who rode fifth-place Cairo Memories , saw the time on the tote board and yelled, “Oh no, that’s way off.”

The New York Racing Association corrected it to 1:59.62.

McKulick paid $12.80 for her second win in five starts and earned $375,000, more than doubling her total to $583,650 for Klaravich Stables.

“McKulick is the first offspring of Frankel I actually bought,” Brown said, “and (owner) Seth Klarman was nice enough to let me name her after my first employee after I left Bobby. And wouldn’t you know that on his birthday she wins a grade 1. The irony, and the importance of it today, on his birthday, means everything personally to me.”

It was Brown’s 46th victory of the Belmont spring meet, two more than David Jacobson's previous record. 

Concert Hall , the 5-2 favorite, ran fourth, a length behind Consumer Spending, who also races for Seth Klarman's Klaravich Stables.

McKulick is out of Astrelle , a 10-year-old daughter of Makfi  who has produced two other group winners in Europe. Astrelle also has a Calyx  weanling filly and a Cracksman  yearling colt.

Video: Belmont Oaks Invitational S. (G1T)