Ellis Park 2-year-old spotlight: Thomas’ Upset Brewing

Chester Thomas knows how to throw a birthday party for his mom, Sue. The Madisonville, Ky., entrepreneur, who won last year’s Ellis Park owner title, captured back-to-back races Saturday, the best gift being the 2-year-old filly Upset Brewing’s 9 3/4-length romp in the fourth race. That was followed by Curlino’s score in a $5,000 claiming race.

“We’re just having fun,” Thomas said Saturday. “(Sunday) is my mom’s 79th birthday, and we’re celebrating it today. Have a birthday cake coming. I’ve never won two in the same day on the same card.”

Thomas, who races in the name of Allied Racing, now has three wins out of 14 starters to move into a four-way tie for the owners’ lead heading into Sunday’s card. With a pair of seconds and thirds, his purse earnings of $75,542 trail only Calumet Farm’s $91,030. His victories have come with three trainers: Upset Brewing is in Buff Bradley’s care, Curlino was trained by Mike Tomlinson until being claimed Saturday and Brad Cox trains Ellis Park Turf Stakes heroine Invenium Viam (a $20,000 claim last winter who should be pretty salty in the Aug. 5 Louisiana Stakes for Louisiana-breds).

Thomas is working to upgrade his stock, and Upset Brewing is a good example, though the daughter of the Castleton Lyons stallion Justin Phillip cost a modest $30,000 at Keeneland’s September yearling sale. But she was hardly an upset Saturday, being the prohibitive favorite after being a good second in her first two starts at Churchill Downs, including rallying from far back in Churchill Downs’ Debutante after a troubled start. In her maiden victory, Upset Brewing coasted seven furlongs in 1:23.33, paying $2.60 to win and the minimum $2.10 to place and show.

“She’s nice,” said meet-leading jockey Corey Lanerie, riding Upset Brewing in a race for the first time. “I worked her twice (at Churchill) and went too fast. I can’t feel how fast she’s going. They say the good ones you can’t ever tell how fast they’re going. Even in the race, I thought I walked and crawled home.

“She’s got such a smooth stride, no wasted action, that she just covers the ground effortlessly. With the times, she’s got me puzzled. Because it sure doesn’t feel like that. She won awful easy. A lot of first-time starters in there, but still she beat them the way she was supposed to. Hopefully she continues to get better.”

“She seems like a nice filly,” Thomas said. “She ran second in the Debutante and had a tough trip. This is a good confidence-builder for her. There were some nice horses in there. I was a little nervous, ‘Oh, we’re going to hook a bear.’ But Corey did a nice job, and the horse did her thing.”

 The likely next step is the $75,000 Ellis Park Debutante on Aug. 20, itself designed to be a stepping stone to Churchill Downs’ Grade 2, $200,000 Pocahontas on Sept. 16, whose winner receives an automatic berth and travel stipend for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Del Mar.

“We really thought she had the ability and would do that, but you never know until you run the race, of course,” Bradley said from Florida, where he was attending a friend’s wedding. “We haven’t talked a whole lot about it, but I think the Ellis Park Debutante would be good. That’s Chester’s home track. I was kind of looking at the Debutante before this race, but didn’t want to get too far ahead of myself. But I thought, ‘If she does it easy, then we can go there in three weeks.’ And I think that was pretty easy.”

Bradley said that last winter he made a trip to Ocala, Fla., where Upset Brewing was among his young horses getting their early training preparation.

“She wasn’t really breezing fast or anything, but she was going with another horse,” he said. “I said, ‘I think this filly is all right.’ She looked like she was moving so effortlessly. Those were breezes we weren’t even timing, but she looked really nice.”

Upset Brewing was picked out for purchase by Lexington bloodstock agent Josh Stevens.

“She was one of the first horses I bought for Chester,” he said. “She’s actually the  cheapest horse we bought for him. What I liked about her was she was compact. I kind of liked the (offspring of) Justin Phillip because they were so sound; he was such a sound racehorse who got better as he got older. She just had a good fluid walk to her. She was a little fast-looking thing. But her mind has been the best thing about her.

“When she was second at Churchill Downs first time out, she did it like she’d run five or six times. And Buff did a good job. We talked back in March, and he was like, ‘I like this little filly. Let’s get her out and see what she’s got early; that if they catch up to her, maybe we’ll have made a little bit of money by that time.’ But it looks like she’s going to train on.”