Clement, Brown have top contenders in Belmont turf stakes

Summer Front goes for another graded stakes win in the Fort Marcy (Adam Coglianese Photography) Withdrawn from last week’s Miami Mile at Calder when the race was taken off the turf, Summer Front will attempt to rebound from a puzzling loss in his most recent start in Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Fort Marcy at Belmont Park. A multiple graded stakes winner, and a two-time scorer in three starts over Belmont’s turf courses, Summer Front kicked off 2014 in style with a solid score in Gulfstream’s Fort Lauderdale over 1 1/16 miles on January 11. Off that score he was made the 2-1 favorite in the Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap the following month, but showed little when finishing seventh in a field of eight. Clement will saddle two others in the Fort Marcy, which is contested at 1 1/16 miles on the inner turf. Speaking of Which registered his first U.S. stakes win at Calder in December when taking the Tropical Turf Handicap by a length, and then was a narrow third in the Colonel E.R. Bradley Handicap at Fair Ground in his most recent outing on January 18.

The third entrant for Clement is Manighar, an eight-year-old French-bred who
was Group 2 winner in his homeland but a multiple Group 1 winner in Australia in
2012. The veteran gray did not fare well in his final two starts Down Under,
finishing 15th in both the Turnbull at Flemington and Caulfield Cup.

“Manighar came to us in Florida over the winter — he’s a great horse,
wonderful character, and very sound,” Clement said. “He probably wants to go
further than this, and he might need a race. Obviously, he hasn’t run in a
while. It’s exciting.”

Another entrant with foreign experience is Ghurair, who makes his U.S. debut
for trainer Chad Brown. Unraced last May, the colt won or placed in two
lucrative Tattersalls sales stakes before finishing fourth in the Dante at York,
a leading Epsom Derby prep.

Likely to show speed in the Fort Marcy are Five Iron, who won three stakes
last year including the Saranac at Saratoga, and Tetradrachm, runner-up in the
Fort Lauderdale and Tropical Turf.

The field is rounded out by multiple Grade 3 winner Swift Warrior, Unbridled
Ocean, Seal Cove, and Sky Blazer.

The co-feature on Saturday is the Grade 3, $150,000
Beaugay,
a 1 1/16-mile test for fillies and mares on the Widener turf. Chad Brown will
saddle the Grade 1-placed Watsdachances, who ended 2013 on a high note taking
the $100,000 Summer Secretary at Aqueduct, and the Group 3-winning Waterway Run,
a nose second in the Hillsborough at Tampa Bay Downs in early March.

Clement will be represented by Orion Moon, a two-time allowance winner on the
New York circuit last summer and most recently second by a head in her 2014
debut at Gulfstream, and Irish Mission, a classic winner in Canada two years ago
and a solid fourth against males in the Northern Dancer Turf at Woodbine last
September when trained by Mark Frostad.

“She’s been with us all winter and she’s training very well,” said Clement of
Irish Mission. “She’s running, maybe a little bit short for her — the mile and
a sixteenth — but if the ground is a bit tiring (the distance) could become
more of a stamina test.”

Making her first start on turf in 15 months is Byrama, who earned Grade 1
laurels last summer when taking the Vanity Handicap and the now-defunct
Hollywood Park.

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