Trainer Brad Cox has Essential Quality poised for successful Saratoga meet

SARATOGA SPRINGS – It was dreary Tuesday morning at Saratoga Race Course. The skies were a hard gray, the air a soupy mess. It wasn’t hot, but the humidity hanging over the Spa two days before the start of the 153rd thoroughbred meeting made it a tad uncomfortable.

Not so much at Barn 61 on the Oklahoma Training Track. That’s the summer home of Kentucky trainer Brad Cox and it was rainbows and balloons there while it was murky just about everywhere else. 

Those who work there may have an extra bounce in their step. That’s because the only gray that mattered on this ugly day just happens to be the best 3-year-old horse in the country.

Essential Quality, the striking gray son of Tapit has taken up residence at the Spa for the last week and he’ll be here through the summer. Before he heads back to Bluegrass Country, Cox hopes Essential Quality provides the barn with a Travers trophy.

The Midsummer Derby is the major summer goal for the big horse, a winner of six of seven career starts. And, when you have the big horse to start off the Saratoga meet, every day is a beautiful day.

“It is good,” Cox said with a smile and then this, after a beat, “if they win.”

Essential Quality, winner of the Belmont Stakes in his last start, had his first work at the Spa last Saturday but it was nothing major. He went four furlongs in 50.44 seconds. Just a chance for him to stretch his legs. 

The major lifting will come later, as he prepares for his first Saratoga start, in the Grade II, $600,000 Jim Dandy on Saturday, July 31. 

“My job is to make sure everything is right for him and he’s prepared,” the 41-year-old Cox said. “I want to make sure everything is going the way it needs to go and give him every shot to succeed up here. So far, so good.”

As Cox spoke to a couple of writers Tuesday morning, he stood in front of Essential Quality’s stall. The horse poked his head out of the stall and seemed to be listening to what his trainer was saying about him. 

Cox has 35 horses on the Spa grounds. The second best 3-year-old in his barn is at the Jersey Shore this week. Mandaloun, who one day may be declared the winner of the Kentucky Derby, is running in the $1 million Haskell at Monmouth Park on Saturday. A win there and, who knows? 

If that happens, Mandaloun might line up in the Travers starting gate to run against Essential Quality.

“We would have to talk it over,” Cox said. “Anything is possible. They ran against each other before in the Kentucky Derby.”

Essential Quality is owned by Godolphin; Mandaloun by Juddmonte. Those are two of the most powerful outfits in the world.

Mandaloun was second in the Derby behind Medina Spirit. A failed drug test following that race by Medina Spirit could open the door for Mandaloun being named the winner. Essential Quality finished fourth in the Run for the Roses.

Having two of the best 3-year-olds in the land certainly bodes well for Cox, who won his first Eclipse Award as the country’s best trainer in January. If his barn keeps going like it has been, he may have to clear off some space on his mantel.

He will also be represented in Saratoga’s prestigious Whitney Stakes this summer with Knicks Go, who won the $3 million Pegasus World Cup on Jan. 23 and, most recently, took the Grade III, $300,000 Cornhusker Handicap at Prairie Meadows in Iowa by 101/4 lengths 12 days ago.

“We work hard, our whole team works extremely hard to put us in this position,” Cox said. “And the horses have executed in the afternoons. It’s kind of like a dream come true. When you start doing this, this is what you want.”

Cox’s first career training win came in 2004. He had to wait until 2018 for his first Grade I victory and that came from his first big horse, Monomoy Girl. His first Saratoga win came on July 21, 2014 when a horse named Overton Square won the ninth race and paid a healthy $47.20.

In a short time, he has begun racking up major victories but even with races like the Belmont and the Pegasus (oh, Cox also won four Breeders’ Cup races last year, including Essential Quality in the Juvenile) on the resume, there is no time to read press clippings. The game, which has always been one that asks what have you done lately, moves on.

“I’m not content with what we have accomplished,” Cox said. “I mean, I’m happy, but you need to keep moving forward. We have a nice crop of 2-year-olds and we’re hopeful to be in a similar position next year with some of them. And we obviously have work to do with the 3-year-olds we currently have.”

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