McKulick Stands Out in Four-Horse Flower Bowl

Normally in a graded turf stakes in New York for fillies and mares, the numbers favor trainer Chad Brown.

Yet in the Sept. 2 Flower Bowl Stakes (G2T), it is trainer Christophe Clement who has quantity on his side. Clement will send out half the field for the $500,000 distaff turf stakes at Saratoga Race Course. Of course, with a field of only four in the 1 3/8-mile Flower Bowl, quantity takes on a different meaning than in most instances.

Meanwhile, Brown has proven quality on his side with his lone starter, McKulick. Owned by Klaravich Stables, the 4-year-old daughter of Frankel  is a grade 1, 2, and 3 winner who has placed in six additional graded stakes. On Saturday she will face a field in which only one of the other three starters has registered a group or graded stakes win on turf.

"She looks good," Brown said. "I've been really happy with her training and we penciled this in right after (she won the Aug. 3 Glens Falls Stakes, G2T, at Saratoga). She seems to run well at Saratoga."

McKulick, named for Brown's late bookkeeper, Mary McKulick, will be the four-time Eclipse Award winner's hope for a record-extending eighth victory in the Flower Bowl. She can also wrap up a guaranteed, fees-paid spot in the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf (G1T) through a victory in the Breeders' Cup Challenge Series: "Win and You're In" stakes.

She enters Saturday's race off a neck victory in the Glens Falls over multiple grade 1-winning War Like Goddess. It was her second win in three starts at Saratoga, adding to a maiden win and a second in last year's Saratoga Oaks Invitational Stakes (G3T).

"She's come around and was a little slow to come into form this year, but now I think she's doing better than ever," said Brown, whose filly captured the Belmont Oaks Invitational Stakes (G1T) last year and closed 2022 with a second in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Stakes (G1T) at Keeneland. "She needed a little more fitness and such, and this time of year, she's at her best physically. She's carrying the most weight I've seen her carry and she's really loving the summer. I think it's leading to her success."

War Like Goddess, who won the 2021 Flower Bowl when it was a grade 1 affair and was second to Brown's Virginia Joy in last year's race, missed some training time due to a fever after the Glens Falls and trainer Bill Mott did not enter the $2 million earner in Saturday's edition. 

Mott was uncertain of future plans for the 6-year-old mare but listed two 1 1/2-mile stakes races against males as possibilities: the $1.7 million Kentucky Downs Turf Cup (G2T) Sept. 9 or a bid for back-to-back wins in the $500,000 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Stakes (G1T) Sept. 30 at Aqueduct Racetrack.

As for the Flower Bowl, Clement's duo is topped by Moyglare Stud Farm's Amazing Grace. A 5-year-old Protectionist mare, she was third in the Glens Falls, 2 1/2 lengths behind McKulick.

A group 2 winner in Germany, in her April 1 United States debut she captured the Orchid Stakes (G3T), a 1 1/2-mile turf test at Gulfstream Park.

Clement also will send out West Point Thoroughbreds and Dream With Me Stable's Parnac, a Zarak filly who was third in the July 1 Robert G. Dick Memorial Stakes (G3T) at Delaware Park.

Andrew Rosen and Linda Shanahan's Tamarama, making her first U.S. start in the Flower Bowl for trainer Jack Sisterson, completes the field.