Portfolio Duration shows heart in G1 New York victory
Klaravich Stables’ Portfolio Duration dug in with tenacity to fend off the charge of Cankoura and make a successful Grade 1 bow in Friday’s $750,000 New York, a 1 3/16-mile Mellon turf route for older fillies and mares on Day Three of the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival.
The win from the 4-year-old Night of Thunder bay was part of a banner day for five-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer Chad Brown and jockey Flavien Prat, who teamed up to win Race 4 with Klaravich Stables' Ways and Means in a successful title defense of the Grade 2 Bed o’ Roses presented by Boldyn Networks in similar gutsy fashion, and in Race 9 with Fitz Right in the Grade 2 Wonder Again presented by Shift4.
Brown also finished second in the Grade 1 DraftKings Acorn with Always a Runner and in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps presented by Ford with Fully Subscribed in a dead heat with Bless the Broken.
Portfolio Duration entered the New York from a neck defeat to Classic Q in the Grade 2 Churchill Distaff Turf Mile on May 2 at Churchill Downs, and faced her farthest test to date in the New York, a race Brown has now won a record six times after scoring with Dacita [2016], Fourstar Crook [2018], Homerique [2019], Bleecker Street [2022] and Marketsegmentation [2023].
Portfolio Duration was one of four runners in the race for Brown, whose other contenders included Kathynmarissa [third], City Girl [fourth] and Pretty Picture [fifth].
Guided to victory from the inside post by Prat, Portfolio Duration was away sharply and led the field of eight passing the wire for the first time. A headstrong Gezora pulled Hall of Fame rider John Velazquez along into second while Speed Shopper checked back between Gezora and the inside-running Pretty Picture. Meanwhile, Portfolio Duration ticked along up front with her ears pricked through the opening quarter-mile in 24.39 seconds over the firm footing.
Pretty Picture tracked in second down the backstretch ahead of a three-wide Kathynmarissa, with Gezora between her and Pretty Picture as the half-mile elapsed in 49.21. Gezora came under a strong ride entering the turn, and faded as 5-year-old Kathynmarissa ranged up and the Clement Lecoeuvre-piloted Cankoura made her way up the inside from next-to-last through three-quarters in 1:12.17.
Brown said he expected at least one other horse to go with Portfolio Duration.
“A couple of mine could've, I thought it was going to be Kathynmarissa,” he said. “Once again, she's just lost her gate speed a little bit at this age. She is running well for me, but she's not as good from the gate two times in a row now. So it was actually Pretty Picture, which I didn't see happening, so then the whole race didn't quite shape up the way I thought. Outside of Portfolio [Duration], everybody was not where I thought they'd be, but fortunately she had a lot left and she gave me a good feel she could handle this distance in the mornings."
Portfolio Duration kept a half-length in front of her stablemate and found more under a strong hand-ride from Prat, and was left to deal with the pursuing Cankoura, who ran up behind Kathynmarissa and angled around her just before the eighth pole to hit the clear and make one final push for the front. Portfolio Duration found another gear in the last sixteenth, and showed good courage to stave off the game Cankoura and win by a head in a final time of 1:52.50.
Brown tipped his cap to the Francis-Henri Graffard-trained Cankoura, who shipped in from France off a close fourth in Saint-Cloud’s Group 3 Prix Allez France on May 1.
“The horse Graffard shipped in sure ran a great race, but our filly, I'm proud of her, and I'm also appreciative she got to the wire ahead of that one, but two nice fillies hit the wire there together,” Brown said.
Cankoura was 1 1/2 lengths the better of Kathynmarissa, with City Girl completing the superfecta. Pretty Picture, Laurelin, Speed Shopper and the favored Gezora rounded out the order of finish. Bellezza was scratched.
Brown said he was confident in Prat to work out the trip on the stretch-out for Portfolio Duration.
"Naturally, just handicapping the race on a stretch-out from a mile to a mile and three sixteenths, that's a pretty good jump,” Brown said. “When you look at the fractions she ran last time, she figured to be on the lead if she broke well, so we gave him full clearance to do that and it just wasn't clear who would be out there with her.”
Prat rode the filly for the third time in the afternoon, his other two tries aboard her yielding seconds by a head on debut last February at Tampa Bay Downs and by a neck last out at Churchill. Their pairing finally proved successful on the biggest stage of Portfolio Duration’s young career.
“She jumped well. We thought that stretching out, she could be the speed,” Prat said. “She gave me a good run, tried hard. After the last time, I think she enjoyed a bit more ground. It took her a little bit of time to get going and today on the stretch-out it was better.”
Lecoeuvre rode at Saratoga for the first time aboard Cankoura, and said the room to angle out in the stretch came a touch too late.
“She ran very well. I think she jumped fast, but wasn’t very fast [compared to others] from the start,” Lecoeuvre said. “We had to sit inside behind, and she fought a lot for the finish. We didn’t have a lot of traffic. I just couldn’t travel inside and go out [until] the middle of the straight. She likes to be between the horses with cover and come fast, but today we had a great fight for the finish, and we were second. The winning filly just go again when I took [to] her. She gave a great performance and she’s a lovely filly.”
Brown added Portfolio Duration, and perhaps one or more of his other runners, could look next to the Grade 1, $500,000 Dunkin' Diana at nine-furlongs for older fillies and mares on July 18 here
“I'd say, I think a slight cutback at a mile and an eighth would be good [for Portfolio Duration] if she's good and healthy, and then we'll have to see if any of these others end up in that type of race,” he concluded.
A $190,371 purchase at the 2023 Tattersalls October Yearling Sale, Portfolio Duration was bred in Great Britain by Michael E. Wates CBE and is out of the Dansili mare Shemya. She banked $412,500 in victory while returning $10 on a $2 win wager.
John Velazquez commented on the performance from reigning Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf-winner Gezora, who made one start this year for Brown before moving to the barn of Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott for the New York.
“There was no speed in the race, so I needed to be there, anyway,” he said of his forward position. “Once I got to the first turn I got a good position. By the time I got to the backstretch, I did not have anything.”
Live racing resumes Saturday, Belmont Stakes Day at Saratoga, with a stacked 14-race card encompassing six Grade 1s among seven graded events, highlighted by the 158th running of the Grade 1, $2 million Belmont Stakes presented by NYRA Bets in Race 13 at 7:04 p.m. Eastern.
The lucrative program includes the Grade 1, $1 million Hill ‘n’ Dale Metropolitan Handicap [Race 11] - a "Win and You're In" for the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile; the Grade 1, $1 million Resorts World Casino Manhattan [Race 12]; the Grade 1, $500,000 Just a Game presented by Resolute Racing [Race 7]; the Grade 3, $400,000 True North [Race 8]; the Grade 1, $500,000 Jaipur [Race 9] – a “Win and You’re In” for the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint; and the Grade 1 Woody Stephens presented by Mohegan Sun [Race 10]. First post is 11 a.m. with gates open to the public at 9 a.m.
America’s Day at the Races presents daily coverage and analysis of the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival at Saratoga Race Course on the networks of FOX Sports. For the complete broadcast schedule, visit https://www.belmontstakes.com/event-info/tv-schedule.
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