{"id":294748,"date":"2025-07-27T02:01:33","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T02:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/294748\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T02:01:33","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T02:01:33","slug":"contenders-get-final-works-in-before-next-weekends-whitney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/294748\/","title":{"rendered":"Contenders Get Final Works In Before Next Weekend’s Whitney"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday, July 26, 2025 at 1:44 pm |
\n Back to: Top News<\/a> <\/p>\n

Updated: July 26, 2025 at 2:53 pm<\/p>\n

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Sierra Leone (inside) works at Saratoga<\/strong> | Sarah Andrew<\/p>\n

Reigning champion 3-year-old colt and ‘TDN Rising Star<\/strong>‘ Sierra Leone <\/strong>(Gun Runner<\/a>), second last out in the GI Stephen Foster on June 28 at Churchill Downs, worked a half-mile in :48.80 (52\/167) Saturday to the inside of Secured Lender over the Spa main track. The Chad Brown runner is expected to start in next Saturday’s GI Whitney Stakes, a ‘Win and You’re In’ race for the GI Breeders’ Classic in November at Del Mar.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe worked super. It was just maintenance,\u201d Brown said. \u201cHe’s bounced out of the Stephen Foster race in good order, and he was moving great through the lane.\u201d<\/p>\n

The $2.3 million Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Select Yearling Sale purchase will face a Whitney field expected to include some of the top older horses in the country with fellow ‘Rising Stars<\/strong>‘ Fierceness (City of Light<\/a>), Mindframe (Constitution<\/a>) along with White Abarrio (Race Day), Skippylongstocking (Exaggerator), Post Time (Frosted<\/a>), Highland Falls (Curlin<\/a>), Gould’s Gold (Goldencents) and Mama’s Gold (Bolt d’Oro) all possible.<\/p>\n


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Brown said he is not too concerned just yet about where his horse ranks in terms of year-end honors, but feels Sierra Leone is in good order as he looks for his first win at the Spa.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s early in the season still and a lot of racing to go,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThe horse is the reigning 3-year-old champion and he’s coming off a very nice race. I’m happy with how he’s training and that’s all that really matters to me at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Highland<\/a><\/p>\n

Highland Falls | Sarah Andrew<\/p>\n

Godolphin’s homebred Highland Falls also turned in his final work for the Whitney when covering five furlongs in 1:01.55 (3\/13) solo over the Saratoga Race Course main track on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Trained by dual Eclipse Award-winner Brad Cox, the 5-year-old worked in his usual blinkers with Luis Saez up. The work was supervised by Blake Cox, the son of and assistant to Brad who said the team was pleased with what they saw from Highland Falls.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was good. He went five-eighths from the half and went nice and smooth, letting him quicken down the lane,\u201d Cox said. \u201cHe looked very happy and it was a good work. He’s a good enough work horse on his own, so we just figured we’d go solo this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Highland Falls returns to the scene of his best performance to date, a four-length romp in last year’s GI Jockey Club Gold Cup that equaled a career-best 104 Beyer Speed Figure.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s doing great and obviously, he had a good year here last year, so I think he likes this place,\u201d Cox said. \u201cI think he’s very similar to last year \u2013 we liked him a lot going into the Jockey Club and he’s a more seasoned horse now. There’s some very good horses in there, but hopefully he can get a piece of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n This story was posted in Top News<\/a> and tagged Brad Cox<\/a>, Breeders’ Cup<\/a>, Chad Brown<\/a>, Curlin<\/a>, Gun Runner<\/a>, Highland Falls<\/a>, Saratoga<\/a>, Sierra Leone<\/a>, TDN Rising Star<\/a>, Whitney<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday, July 26, 2025 at 1:44 pm | Back to: Top News Updated: July 26, 2025 at 2:53…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[20344,80266,100516,107995,96446,20348,1071,92998,2532,79,20355,16,15,9607],"class_list":{"0":"post-294748","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-brad-cox","9":"tag-breeders-cup","10":"tag-chad-brown","11":"tag-curlin","12":"tag-gun-runner","13":"tag-highland-falls","14":"tag-racing","15":"tag-saratoga","16":"tag-sierra-leone","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-tdn-rising-star","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-whitney"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114922735780365621","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}