Patternrecognition breaks through in Belmont Park's Kelso Handicap
Klaravich Stables’ Patternrecognition didn’t debut until age 4, but the Chad Brown trainee has proven a quick study, breaking through in his first stakes outing to win the Grade 2, $300,000 Kelso Handicap in gate-to-wire fashion.
Battle of Midway was aiming to improve from his runner-up return in the Grade 2 Pat O’Brien Stakes since proving subfertile at stud. After running off the pace, last year’s Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile champion finished off the board.
“I just wanted to play the break and see where the
1 (Battle of Midway) broke,” said winning jockey Tyler Gaffalione. “If we broke
in front of him, I would definitely take advantage of it. He broke real alertly
and took me to the lead pretty comfortably.”
Patternrecognition had his way, setting easy fractions in 23.77, 46.83 and 1:10.32 for a mile race. No Dozing moved up to second after a slow start over Battle of Midway. Still Having Fun and Sunny Ridge were ahead of Timeline, also trained by Brown, and Realm. The two trailers both broke open the starting gate early but did not leave their positions.
The pacesetter sailed home without much trouble, completing the mile in 1:34.16.
Brown’s assistant trainer Whit Beckman was on hand for the victory.
“He chewed it up and spit it out. That was impressive," Beckman said. "Tyler put
him in a great spot on the lead and the horse did the rest. We've
been trying to find the distance where he fits, and it seems like the mile is
good for him with the way he went today. Tyler put him up and saw nobody was
going with him, so he just got comfortable and left him there. It was coming to
him easy.”
Sunny Ridge, Timeline and No Dozing
finished next in line over Battle of Midway, Still Having Fun and Realm.
The Kelso improved Patternrecognition’s record to 10:4-5-0 and gave the Florida-bred back-to-back wins following his allowance optional claiming victory at Saratoga Aug. 11.
“I have to give credit to Chad and his team,” Gaffalione said. “They did a great job with him. You can see from his past races he’s always been a fighter. He was in a good rhythm on the turn for home and those horses didn’t really come to him. When I asked him for run, he definitely responded.”