Highly Motivated pointed to Gotham for 3-year-old bow

Chad Brown is pointing Highly Motivated to the Grade 3, $300,000 Gotham at Aqueduct on March 6 for the colt’s 3-year-old debut, he said during a Tuesday appearance on the Jason Beem Horse Racing Podcast by TwinSpires.

The colt has won his last two races, including the Nyquist Stakes on Nov. 6 at Keeneland in his most recent trip. The Gotham is a 50-20-10-5 points race for the Kentucky Derby.

“I penciled in the Gotham,” Brown said. “I think it’s a nice spot to stretch him out a little bit.”

The Into Mischief colt returned to work Jan. 16 and most recently worked Jan. 30 at Payson Park Training Center. Brown said the colt needed the long layoff.

“He had come out of that Nyquist race a little body sore and such,” Brown said. “Good time to give a horse a break that had really never had a break since he was broke the previous fall.”

Brown said Highly Motivated had come back “a little bit behind,” but had looked good in his last workout and was returning to form.

During the podcast appearance, Brown hit on several other topics, including the difficulties related to replacing top retired talent in his barn.

“You just hope when you have your team members moving on so to speak in another career, that you have ones coming behind them,” Brown said. “Fortunately for the majority of my 13-year career as we really started to get rolling the second half of that, I’ve had a lot of good prospects coming in.”

Brown, who came up working for trainer Bobby Frankel, shared some memories of the late trainer, and discussed how Frankel had impacted him.

“He wasn’t somebody that was going to hold your hand and give you a test at the end of the day,” Brown said. “I think most prominent trainers are probably that way, he certainly was. You just had to follow and watch and learn. You had to be active about your learning experience.”

Brown’s entire podcast appearance can be found here.