Seth Klarman is a businessman and hedge manager extraordinaire, a generous philanthropist, and the owner of Klaravich Stables, one of Thoroughbred racing’s biggest and best stables.
He also knows a thing or two about placing his horses in the right spot.
When it came time for trainer Chad Brown to enter horses in the Aug. 19 Alabama Stakes (G1) for 3-year-old fillies at Saratoga Race Course, the four-time Eclipse Award winner was set to drop Juddmonte’s Fireline in the entry box.
Then Klarman suggested also entering his daughter of Nyquist , Randomized . Brown wasn’t immediately sold on the idea. As much as she was brilliant in two of her last three starts, sandwiched in between fast, front-running wins in the Wilton Stakes and an Aqueduct Racetrack maiden victory was an 11 1/2-length loss in the Acorn Stakes (G1), her lone effort in a graded stakes.
The more Brown mulled the possibilities, the more he came to see the wisdom in Klarman’s suggestion.
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So he entered Randomized in the famed 10-furlong test for 3-year-old fillies and now he has a pair of Alabama wins to his name as she took the lead at the start and never looked back in capturing the $600,000 Alabama by four lengths over 9-5 favorite Wet Paint before a crowd of 39,743 at the Spa.
“I have to give Seth Klarman a lot of credit,” Brown said. “He kept looking at the race and saying how fast the filly is and we should consider running her. I was thinking of resting her for the Cotillion, (G1, Sept. 23 at Parx Racing) at a mile and a sixteenth. As the race got closer, she was breezing well so I decided to enter to look at the pace scenario. Then when we talked the other day he told me, ‘If you’re willing to do it, I have a good feeling about it.’ He was right.”
Indeed he was.
As much as the jump from the Wilton, an ungraded stakes at the Spa, to the Alabama was prodigious, there was some logic to it once Brown reflected on that July 14 performance by the filly bred by Cove Springs in Kentucky. After failing to fire in the Acorn when she was fourth early on, the Wilton marked a return to her front-running ways and dazzling final speed figures.
“I was very disappointed by the Acorn but I wasn’t really discouraged because I knew how fast she had run.
Coming into the (Alabama) she had the two fastest (Ragozin speed figures) by any 3-year-old filly on dirt (in her Wilton and maiden win). That doesn’t mean she’ll go a mile and a quarter, but she’s at the top percentile of this crop,” Brown said. “I don’t think she appreciated the dirt in her face in the Acorn. The more I observed her training, I decided to give (jockey Joel Rosario) some instructions I learned from my good friend (Hall of Fame trainer) Bob Baffert. I said. ‘I want clean silks when you come back.’ I don’t train that way but it worked today.”
Rosario followed those instructions to the letter, grabbing the early lead by a length over Defining Purpose through comfortable fractions of :23.45 and 1:12.33.
Meanwhile, Godolphin’s Kentucky Oaks (G1) runner-up and Coaching Club American Oaks (G1) winner Wet Paint was closer to the pace than usual, running along the rail in third after the opening six furlongs.
Approaching the quarter pole, Randomized put away Defining Purpose and dashed off to a 3 1/2-length lead in mid-stretch. Wet Paint moved into second leaving the eighth pole, but could not gain ground over the 7-1 shot ($16.20) in the final furlong as the Nyquist filly crossed the wire in 2:03.07.
Wet Paint, a homebred daughter of Blame trained by Brad Cox, was second by 1 1/2 lengths over Katsumi Yoshida’s Ashland Stakes (G1) winner Defining Purpose, a Cross Traffic filly trained by Ken McPeek.
“It was a good effort. Maybe she was closer to the pace than I expected but overall I was very happy with the trip and effort. She was second best. We’ll regoup and see where we go from here,” Cox said about Wet Paint.
Brown, who also watched Fireline finish eighth in the field of 10, said he was uncertain of future plans for Randomized, but did not rule out running in the $1 million Cotillion.
Out of the Elusive Quality mare French Passport, Randomized is the fourth of seven foals from his dam and her first graded stakes winner and third winner. French Passport also has a yearling Frosted filly and a 2023 Maxfield filly.
Randomized was bought for $420,000 at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale from the Four Star Sales consignment with what Brown describe as his final bid on the filly.
“She looked fast and that she had speed that she could carry,” said Brown, who also won the 2019 Alabama with Dunbar Road. “She was by Nyquist, a route horse, but she looked fast. (Bloodstock agent) Mike Ryan liked her and put her on our list and we were lucky enough to get her with our last bid.”
Video: Alabama S. Presented by Keeneland Sales (G1)