Beautiful But Blue Has Hands Full at Saratoga

Trainer Tom Bush knows he has his hands full Thursday when he sends out his multiple stakes winner Beautiful But Blue in the seven-furlong $100,000 Lotsa Talc for New York-bred fillies and mares, 3-years-old and up.

“You’ve got Miss Valentine, Clear Pasaj for Bruce Levine, and Willet,” Bush said, rattling off the names of some of the stiff opposition. “It’s a tough race. All those fillies are competitive probably in open races. It’s the improved New York program, for sure.”

Something will have to give in the Lotsa Talc, and the horses in the field of six scheduled to run make few errors. Combine each of the runners’ past eight races and you get a record of 18 wins, 15 seconds and eight thirds from 48 starts with only seven off-the-board finishes.

Beautiful But Blue, a 4-year-old Chester and Mary Broman homebred daughter of El Corredor, had a terrific meet at Saratoga last summer, winning the $100,000 Fleet Indian for state-breds by 2 ¾ lengths at the Lotsa Talc distance and then finishing a close-up third in the Grade 1 Test.

Since then, she has placed in four of five starts – all stakes races – but hasn’t won. Bush said Beautiful But Blue is in strong form, but he dismissed the suggestion that she might be at her best at Saratoga.

“She’s doing very well,” Bush said. “I’m tickled to death to run her. The race, they don’t give it away, that’s for sure. She won a stake at Belmont and won a stake here, too. She also won one at Aqueduct. She can run wherever; she’s versatile. She’s come back good this year and run very well twice. We’re expecting her to do the same again.”