Back in his own barn, Chatlos on 'the route that Frankel took'

It was about six months ago that Don Chatlos' career took a left turn. The one-time trainer, who in 2004 saddled Singletary to a win in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, had been happily serving for four-plus years as the main assistant for trainer Jerry Hollendorfer.

Then in June, that all changed. Following a rash of equine fatalities at Santa Anita earlier this year, which included four from the Hollendorfer barn, track management banished the Hall of Fame conditioner from both Santa Anita and sister facility Golden Gate Fields. The Del Mar Thoroughbred Club and New York Racing Association followed suit in barring Hollendorfer from its facilities. 

Among Hollendorfer’s clients, deep-pocketed owner Larry Best made the decision to transfer his OXO Equine color-bearers to Chatlos. On Saturday, the pairing notched Chatlos his first stakes win in 14 years with Brill in Santa Anita Park's Lady of Shamrock.

“It’s great to be back,” Chatlos said of both training and his return to California. “I was here for 35 years and this home.”

Chatlos currently has 14 horses for OXO Equine at Santa Anita with a half-dozen more expected to arrive sometime in January. He said the plan is to spend the winter at Santa Anita and then head back to New York from spring to fall, similar to the path once blazed by the late Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel. 

“We’ll go the route that Frankel took by going from spring through fall in the New York and then back her for the winter,” Chatlos said. 

As for Brill, her win in the Lady of Shamrock was her first start on turf. Previously, the 3-year-old daughter of Medaglia d’Oro had been coming up a bit short in graded stakes on the main track, which includes fourth-place finishes in both the Black-Eyed Susan (G2) at Pimlico and most recently the Victory Ride Stakes (G3) at Belmont Park in June. 

Returning from a six-month layoff for her turf debut, Brill broke on top under Mike Smith and was never headed while coasting to a 1 ¾-length win. Chatlos said Brill had never so much as worked on the grass, making the results all the more encouraging. 

“That was our worry -- until they do it you don’t know how it’s going to go,” Chatlos said. “But that’s the thing. Her running lines were so strong with Bellafina twice, Lady Apple, Motion Emotion -- it was a who’s who of 3-year-old fillies. So we thought we were in the right spot. We just hoped we had the right surface.”

Chatlos said Brill came out of the race in good order and will likely be pointed to the $100,000 Megahertz Stakes going a mile on the grass on Jan. 20.

“The spacing is good and it’s a mile, so we will take a look at that,” Chatlos said. 

While there’s that to look forward to, the more immediate concern for Chatlos is getting OXO Equine’s high-priced 3-year-old Instagrand back to the stakes ranks. A $1.2-million auction purchase as a yearling, Instagrand was on the Triple Crown trail earlier this year when running third in both the Gotham (G3) at Aqueduct and the Santa Anita Derby (G1). He was re-routed to the Pat Day Mile, where he ran eighth and was subsequently sent to the sidelines.

Instagrand resurfaced on Dec. 1 in an optional-claimer at Del Mar. Going 6 ½-furlongs, the son of Into Mischief flashed speed for about half mile before fading last.

“We got to Del Mar from New York and he worked really good, 59 and change right off the plane,” Chatlos said. “But then the race that we had planned didn’t go. We tried five times for that race to go. It just got drug out. By the time the race finally went, he was flat. He shot out of there and after a half mile he was done. I was fortunate to have Mike Smith on him in a situation like that because he protected him and wrapped him up. It wasn’t going to be his day.”

Instagrand will try and get back on the beam Wednesday at Santa Anita. He is entered in a second-level allowance race going a mile on the main track. Chatlos indicated another sub-par performance and that could be it for the racing career of Instagrand.

“We’re going to put him in and see what happens,” Chatlos said of Instagrand, a Grade 2 winner at age 2 who has worked three times since that comeback effort. “Obviously with a horse like that, if he doesn’t want to do it anymore, we’re not going to keep running him. We’ll sit down the day after the race and see then what we want to do with him.”