Peter Brant and St. Elias Stable’s Asbury Park rallied to a two-length victory in Saturday\u2019s Grade 2, $500,000 Jockey Club Derby Invitational, an 11-furlong inner turf test for sophomores at Belmont at the Big A.<\/p>\n
It was a second stakes victory on the afternoon for Franco, trainer Chad Brown and co-owner and breeder St. Elias Stable, adding to Rated by Merit\u2019s front-running win in the restricted $125,000 Discovery in Race 2. In victory, Asbury Park followed in the footsteps of his two-time Group 2-winning half-brother Spanish Mission, who captured the 2019 Jockey Club Derby Invitational at Belmont Park.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt was a really fairly run race. The pace was honest enough and he [Manny Franco] – after leaving with good intent to get the pace going – was able to guide him back towards the rear and towards the fence and covered up. That’s where he wants to be. He really worked out a good trip from there. That’s a couple nice stakes wins today with Manny — he’s done a great job for us,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
The Kendrick Carmouche-piloted Crudo showed the way through splits of 23.79 seconds, 48.30 and 1:14.02 over the firm footing while stalked closely by his Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher-trained stablemate Noble Confessor and the ground-saving A Bourbon for Toby in third.<\/p>\n
Asbury Park was settled comfortably in next-to-last in the field of seven but moved up willingly down the backstretch as Crudo led into the final turn. Crudo spun the field into the stretch run as Woodbine-based raider Hammerhead launched a furious rally up the rail but was stymied by the retreating A Bourbon for Toby. Asbury Park, who tipped out late in the turn, found clear sailing and lifted late to notch the victory in a final time of 2:14.45.<\/p>\n
Franco, the meet\u2019s leading rider, said he was able to work out a patient trip.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThey told me to try to be \u2013 if I can \u2013 try to be behind the speed, but as soon as we break and everybody went for position, they run away from me. I just take my time,\u201d Franco said. \u201cAfter that, I rode my race from there. I was comfortable where I was. He was traveling well. Man, going to the three-eighths pole, I had a lot of horse. I just tried to find the room, when I get the room, he explode for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Noble Confessor completed the exacta by a half-length over the Brown-trained favorite Hill Road, who lugged in at the top of the lane before straightening out and closing well for third. Crudo, Hammerhead, Game Warrior and A Bourbon for Toby rounded out the order of finish.<\/p>\n
Asbury Park, by Frankel, graduated at second asking in June at Saratoga Race Course and entered from a rallying 1 1\/4-length third in the Spa\u2019s restricted Saranac (L) on September 1.<\/p>\n
Brown indicated Asbury Park could point to the nine-furlong Grade 1 Hollywood Derby on November 29 at Del Mar.<\/p>\n
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“I think that makes a lot of sense,\u201d Brown said. \u201cHe’ll have to cut back to two turns, but he had a nice kick at Saratoga going two turns. He certainly found his way going a mile and three-eighths, so we’ll see.”<\/p>\n
Bred in Great Britain by St. Elias Stable, Asbury Park banked $275,000 in victory while improving his record to 5-2-0-1. He returned $6.96 for a $2 win bet. Asbury Park is out of the stakes-winning Street Cry mare Limonar \u2013 a half-sister to Grade 1 winner Talco. Kentucky-bred Spanish Mission is a son of Frankel’s full brother Noble Mission, who was relocated from Central Kentucky to stand in Japan.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported by Paulick Report<\/a> on Oct 4, 2025, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Paulick Report as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peter Brant and St. Elias Stable’s Asbury Park rallied to a two-length victory in Saturday\u2019s Grade 2, $500,000…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[79650,64350,14185,3004,79651,101,33656,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-179524","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-asbury-park","9":"tag-belmont-park","10":"tag-chad-brown","11":"tag-racing","12":"tag-spanish-mission","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-st-elias-stable","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}