Top Trainers Hold Strong Hands at Belmont

Trainers Chad Brown and Todd Pletcher who, unsurprisingly rank among the top conditioners in wins at Belmont’s closing fall meet, will look to end things on a high in today’s GIII Turnback the Alarm H. Brown will saddle Alpha Delta Stables’s Endless Chatter (First Samurai) and Hidden Brook Farm’s Catch My Drift (Pioneerof the Nile); while Pletcher sends out two “TDN Rising Stars” in Stonestreet Stables’s Teen Pauline (Tapit) and Bobby Flay’s Dame Dorothy(Bernardini). Endless Chatter capped a three-race win streak in Saratoga’s restricted Summer Colony S. Aug. 18 before finishing a distant third behind GI Breeders’ Cup Distaff contender Belle Gallantey (After Market) in the local GI Beldame Invitational S. “This is a filly that really came around this summer, particularly at Saratoga,” said Brown of Endless Chatter. “I’m real proud of her. She’s a horse who stayed here all winter and kind of went around in circles for a while. When she finally hit a bit of a growth spurt, she really came on this summer. Her last race was a third in the Beldame behind a horse who’s going to the Breeders’ Cup and that was a really good showing. This is more of her class level. Two turns is more her preference, but it looks like a good fit, class-wise, for her.” Catch My Drift kicked off her career with victories at Parx and Monmouth, but was seventh when trying 10 furlongs and significantly tougher competition in the GI Alabama S. Aug. 16. The sophomore returned to winning ways while overcoming a rough start and her own greenness in a Bensalem optional claimer Sept. 20. “We backed up and regrouped with her and she won a nice allowance race at Parx Racing,” Brown said of the morning line 6-1 shot. “She really did well. She’s run well there; she needs to translate that form to here.” Teen Pauline is undefeated in three efforts this season at four, but hasn’t been seen since annexing the GII Top Flight H. on the Big A inner track Mar. 1. “She got a bit of a freshening after her winter campaign, and this is sort of where she landed,” said Pletcher. “I’m not sure that she is at her best around one turn, but we are looking forward to getting her back underway.” Dame Dorothy was a debut winner going seven panels in Ozone Park Nov. 30 before airing by 12 lengths in a sloppy route allowance at Gulfstream Jan. 21. She was last seen taking Presque Isle’s Malvern Rose S. for Pennsylvania-breds Aug. 10 ahead of a next-out stakes winner. “She’s a filly we’ve always thought a lot of,” said Pletcher of the $390,000 KEESEP yearling. “She’s had some spacing between her starts and we’re hoping to get a little more consistent schedule with her. There are limited options, and this is a bit of an ambitious placing for her. But we think highly of her and this should set her up for the [GIII] Comely [S. at Aqueduct Nov. 29], which would be back against straight 3-year-old fillies.”