Having a grade 1 win at Saratoga Race Course is a huge asset when it's time to run in another grade 1 at the Spa.
But all grade 1s are not the same. Especially at Saratoga.
A year ago, Godolphin's Highland Falls captured the Jockey Club Gold Cup Stakes (G1) at the Spa.
And trainer Brad Cox says the homebred son of Curlin is doing as well now as he was year ago.
Yet Cox has some concerns as Highland Falls runs Aug. 2 in the Spa's premier dirt race for older horses a year after he prevailed in the meet's second-best race for the handicap division.
"I think he's as good as he was last year and we'll see what that means This is a very good race on Saturday. He could even be better than last year and not win the race," Cox said about the 8-1 shot in the Whitney.
For Highland Falls, the challenge will be facing a collection of probably eight of the top older horses in the $1 million Whitney Stakes (G1) at Saratoga, a race that will award the winner a free spot in the Nov. 1 Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) at Del Mar as part of the Breeders' Cup Challenge Series: Win and You're In.
Speaking of which, last year's Classic pretty much frames what Highland Falls will be facing as, on the heels of his win in the 1 1/4-mile Gold Cup, he finished a distant ninth in the mile-and-a-quarter main event at the World Championships while the two favorites in Saturday's Whitney, Sierra Leone (2-1) and Fierceness (9-5), crossed the wire first and second, respectively.
"He's proven over the track," Cox said. "The Gold Cup was a mile and a quarter. He broke running and sat very close to the pace. In this race, the layout will be a little different and I am not sure if that's good or bad. We'll see. He's a millionaire and if he can step forward, I think he can be part of the equation at the end."
Highland Falls comes into the mile-and-an-eighth Whitney off an easy 5 1/2-length score in a June 27 allowance optional claimer at Aqueduct Racetrack. It was his first race since a 14 1/4-length loss in the Nov. 2 Classic and after a winter that did not work out as planned.
"We turned him out for the winter and he really didn't put on as much weight as we were hoping. He really didn't thrive on being turned out. When we got him back his coat was off a little bit and his hair was long, so we had to get him back into the routine of things," Cox said.
Seeing Highland Falls return from the nearly eight-month-long layoff with a powerful win gave Cox hope that the son of the multiple grade 1-winning Awesome Again mare Round Pond is ready for another solid effort on Saturday.
"We expected him to run big off the layoff and he did," Cox said about the winner of six of 11 starts with earnings of $1,312,660. "He's fit. I don't know if you can put a number on it, but he's fit. "
Saratoga Race Course, Saturday, August 2, 2025, Race 11Entries: Whitney S. (G1)
PP Horse Jockey Wgt Trainer M/L 1 1Mindframe (MD) Jose Antonio Gomez 124 Todd A. Pletcher 5/2 2 2Skippylongstocking (KY) Jose L. Ortiz 122 Saffie A. Joseph, Jr. 10/1 3 3Highland Falls (KY) Luis Saez 124 Brad H. Cox 8/1 4 4Mama's Gold (NY) Romero Ramsay Maragh 120 James W. Ferraro 50/1 5 5Sierra Leone (KY) Flavien Prat 124 Chad C. Brown 2/1 6 6Disarm (KY) Joel Rosario 120 Steven M. Asmussen 15/1 7 7White Abarrio (KY) Irad Ortiz, Jr. 124 Saffie A. Joseph, Jr. 4/1 8 8Contrary Thinking (KY) Dylan Davis 120 Chad C. Brown 50/1 9 9Fierceness (KY) John R. Velazquez 124 Todd A. Pletcher 9/5 10 10Post Time (MD) Sheldon Russell 120 Brittany T. Russell 12/1
