Champion Take Charge Brandi Returns in Test

Take Charge Brandi will cut back in distance, but not in class, when last year's champion 2-year-old filly starts for the first time since January in the $500,000 Longines Test Stakes (gr. I) Saturday, Aug. 8 at Saratoga Race Course.

Willis Horton's Take Charge Brandi extended her win streak to four races when the daughter of Giant's Causeway   opened her 3-year-old season with a narrow victory in the Martha Washington Stakes Jan. 31 at Oaklawn Park. After that win she was sidelined by a non-displaced bone chip in her right knee.

Last year Take Charge Brandi closed her juvenile campaign with three straight graded stakes wins, including grade I scores in the 14 Hands Winery Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita Park and Starlet Stakes at Los Alamitos Race Course. 

Take Charge Brandi has raced in two-turn races six straight times and will return to sprinting in the seven-furlong Test for the first time since finishing fifth in last year's Adirondack Stakes (gr. II) at Saratoga. She did win her 4 1/2-furlong debut at Churchill Downs and finished second in last year's Schuylerville Stakes (gr. III) at the Spa.

"She's right on target," said Take Charge Brandi's Racing Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas. "She's had a good work pattern and is doing really well. She's strong. She's had some very good works, so she's had enough. She should run good. Seven-eighths (of a mile) is not ideal for her. I think she's a better two-turn filly, but the distance is probably better for a comeback race."

While the distance may not be ideal, Lukas believes Take Charge Brandi is in top form entering Saturday's race for 3-year-old fillies.

"I like what I see," said Lukas, whose lone Test victory came in 1985 with Lady's Secret, the 1986 Horse of the Year. "I think she's every bit as good as she was when we ended up last year on her."

A pair of fillies who recently registered runner-up finishes in grade I races at Belmont Park await Take Charge Brandi in Jay Em Ess Stable's By the Moon and Treadway Racing Stable's Wonder Gal. Last year's Frizette Stakes (gr. I) winner, By the Moon finished second by a head to Curalina in the June 6 Acorn Stakes, a one-turn mile. Wonder Gal finished third in the Acorn and enters Saturday's race off a second to Include Betty in the June 27 Mother Goose Stakes.

Grade I winner Angela Renee, who has finished off the board in her two most recent starts, will try to return to top form for trainer Todd Pletcher. The daughter of Bernardini   will be sprinting for the first time since finishing third in last year's Spinaway Stakes (gr. I) at Saratoga.

"We're kind of thinking with the success we had with (grade 1 winner) Dame Dorothy shortening up to seven furlongs, it might make sense with this filly as well," Pletcher said.

Hot owner Stonestreet Stables will send out Cavorting, also a daughter of Bernardini, who enters off a victory in the Jersey Girl Stakes June 5 at Belmont.

"We've been pointing for this since June 7. She's doing great," said trainer Kiaran McLaughlin. "It's a grade I, and we feel like she's a grade I filly. We always thought she wanted longer, but she's run very well short. I would think seven furlongs is right up her alley. We're excited."