Brian Brown doesn't normally campaign older horses. But 2020 is no ordinary year, and the four-year-old pacers he's bringing back aren't ordinary individuals by any means.
Brown is hopeful the snake-bitten tandem of Proof and Workin On A Mystery can avoid crossing paths with black cats and show their true colours after what can only be described as a nightmare of a 2019 season.
“Proof came in right after the first of January and he came back pretty good,” Brown told Trot Insider. “He was going to crack a knee last year if we didn’t stop with him. I think he injured himself when he won the elimination of the Hempt at Pocono. He was tremendous that day.
“We put some pads on him and they had an extension in the heel – a degree pad of some type,” Brown added. “That pad broke out in the race and it let the angle down to the point where he was hyper-extending the knee. We went back and raced the next week and he was no good and then we went home and he just wasn’t right.”
Brown was left scratching his head over what was ailing the son of A Rocknroll Dance-Ginger And Fred, but it didn’t take long to diagnose the problem.
“Proof went to Rood & Riddle after our vet at home found something,” said Brown. “We sent him off to Rood & Riddle and they did a bone scan and they figured out the problem. So we just quit with the rest of the year with the hopes of him coming back and having a good year this year and beyond.”
Consistency was a problem for Workin On A Mystery in 2019, but Brown is optimistic the four-year-old son of Captaintreacherous-Dragons Tale will put it all together going forward.
“With ‘Mystery’, it’s basically up to him,” Brown claimed. “If he’s good, he’s good. We’ll worry about any possible stud deals later. It’s the same with both of them; it’s all up to them.”
While both pacers showed immense talent, Brown said that’s where the similarities end.
“Proof was a pretty nice colt right from the beginning, whereas Mystery was more of a surprise because he hurt a foot and he had to come on later as a two-year-old,” he claimed. “Proof was real good early. He wound up winning the Pennsylvania Sire Stakes final and won two or three races before that. But from the Pennsylvania Sire Stakes Final on he turned into a really nice horse. He won the elimination of the Breeders Crown and was second in the final. We thought he was going to have a really good year. He made around $450,000 or somewhere around there as a two-year-old, and to only get to race him a couple of times as a three-year-old was a real disappointment.”
With that disappointment in the rear view mirror, Brown is focusing on looking forward to what Proof can do down the road.
“As long as he stays sound I think he can turn into a nice horse also,” he said. “His whole problem was he got sore early and didn’t get into the year to find out how good he really is. But that day of the Hempt, he could have gone with any three-year-old that day.”
One of the 68 horses Brown and his crew started with in Florida this winter, Proof is getting closer to making a return to the races.
“I trained him in 1:58 before we left Florida and he trained in 2:10 today," said Brown on Saturday (April 11).”
The patient approach is something that Brown has employed on the comeback trail with the pacer, and he’s quick to credit his owner.
“Adam [Bowden] owns this horse by himself, and there’s never any push,” stated Brown. “When the horse is ready and healthy, Adam’s ready to race. But don’t rush to do anything is the way he looks at it.
“I have a bunch of good owners,” Brown added. “I had a nightmare of a year last year. I had a lot of sickness, lameness, ulcers, livers and horses tying up last year. We had just an average year. We didn’t win any major races and didn’t win much in the Sires Stakes, but at the end of the year it got better in the Sires Stakes but it was too late in the year to recoup it. My main owners stuck behind me and we went right back to the yearling sales and bought more. I’m blessed to have the owners I have that stand behind and keep giving you these chances.”
People involved in racing know a heaping helping of luck is needed when it comes to campaigning horses, and Brown is a firm believer of that, as well.
“I think we could have a nice year this year if we can avoid all the problems I had last year,” he said. “There’s years where things go right and you really don’t know why they were so good because you didn’t do anything different. And then you have a year like we did last year and you don’t know why. Hopefully we had our bad year and we’re ready to go and have some nice years in a row again.”
Proof was the favorite in
Proof was the favorite in both the 2018 Breeders Crown Final and The 2019 Hempt Final. If his connections want to take their time returning their horse to the races, they couldn't have picked a better time to do so!