Brown to Use Curlin as Travers Test for Strategic Focus

The $135,000 Curlin Stakes at Saratoga Race Course is not a time-honored path to the Travers Stakes (G1). The top 3-year-olds rely on the Haskell Stakes (G1) or the Jim Dandy Stakes (G2). Yet the Curlin serves a purpose as one last chance to swim in a shallow pond before heading over to much deeper waters in the Aug. 23 Midsummer Derby at the Spa. That premise explains why Klaravich Stables' Strategic Focus is entered in the July 24 Curlin at the Spa as opposed to the recent July 19 Haskell at Monmouth Park. With the son of Gun Runner having just two career starts, trainer Chad Brown wanted to give him one more race against moderate competition before taking on the division leaders. Which led him to the mile-and-an-eighth Curlin, a stakes restricted to horses who have not won a graded stakes at a mile or more in 2025, for both Strategic Focus and multiple grade 1 winner Chancer McPatrick, who is winless at 3. "He's sort of proven at the distance and the track. He's training well and we expect him to take another step forward. He's going to need it if he wants to be competitive in the Travers," Brown said about Strategic Focus, who was bred by Alter's Racing Stables out of the Curlin mare Curlin's Mistress. "He's one start away. If he can win the Curlin, he'll be ready to run against those kinds of horses in the Travers." Bought for $500,000 at the 2023 Keeneland September Yearling Sale, Strategic Focus has crossed the wire first in both career starts. But in his second try, though he prevailed by three-quarters of a length, he was disqualified and placed second for veering in on stablemate Malarchuk in a June 6 1 1/8-mile allowance optional claimer at Saratoga. For Flanagan Racing's Chancer McPatrick, Brown pondered two options for getting the 2024 Hopeful Stakes (G1) and Champagne Stakes (G1) winner back on the winning track. One was the Curlin. The other was the July 25 Amsterdam Stakes (G2) at 6 1/2 furlongs. "The Curlin is the lesser of two evils. This is a mile and an eighth and I'm not dying to do this because he's never won around two turns," Brown said. "But I definitely didn't want to run 6 1/2 furlongs in the Amsterdam. I think that's too short. He doesn't have the speed he needs to keep up at that distance this year." A candidate for champion 2-year-old male until he ran sixth in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1) while racing around two turns for the first time, the son of McKinzie has yet to win in three 2025 starts. Most recently he was seventh in the seven-furlong Woody Stephens Stakes (G1) on a muddy track and before that was sixth as the favorite in the 1 1/8-mile Blue Grass Stakes (G1). "He's training nicely," Brown said. "A one-turn mile would have been perfect for him, but that's not out there. We'll take it race by race with him and see where we go." The field of eight also features Wathnan Racing's Hypnus, a son of Into Mischief and a June 1 allowance optional claimer winner at Churchill Downs for trainer Ken McPeek; and Bobby Flay and James Ventura's Crudo, a Todd Pletcher-trained son of Justify who was eighth in the Belmont Stakes (G1).