Bring Theband Home calls the tune in Troy

After coming within an eyelash of Cogburn’s record time in the July 4 Harvey Pack S. at Saratoga, Bring Theband Home flirted with a stakes record when dominating Sunday’s $300,000 Troy (G2) over the same course and distance. 

The 0.65-1 favorite sped 5 1/2 furlongs on the firm Mellon course in 1:00.38, just off the 1:00.23 mark established by Leinster in the 2019 Troy. Bring Theband Home wasn’t quite as fast as he was in the Harvey Pack, where he blitzed in :59.90 – only a tenth of a second away from equaling Cogburn’s dazzling :59.80 in last summer’s Jaipur (G1) – but he was still much the best.

Trainer Mark Casse offered a couple of reasons for the slight variation in times. 

“I was a little worried about regression (from the Harvey Pack), and we probably got a little today,” the dual Hall of Famer said, “but it was still good enough.

“I think he likes it (the course), the harder the better. He went one-tenth off the world record (in his prior start), so you know it was pretty hard. I think this turf still has a little give in it right now, just a little.”

A homebred for Charlotte Weber’s Live Oak Plantation, Bring Theband Home was bumped at the break, but swiftly recovered to take control. The Into Mischief gelding blazed through fractions of :21.38, :43.39, and :54.45, and his lead expanded to as many as four lengths in the stretch. His margin was eventually reduced to 1 1/2 lengths at the wire, but with plenty of cushion to preserve his perfect Saratoga record. 

Bring Theband Home was completing a Florida-bred sweep of the Sunday stakes, following Mythical in the Adirondack (G3). He was also ending a month-long losing streak for Hall of Fame rider Javier Castellano.

“Amazing,” Castellano summed up. “He's a fast horse, as you see how he break out of the gate. People make a comment a little bit because he switches leads back and forth. Seems to me that's his style….Every step of the race, he was switching leads back and forth, and he feels good and feels healthy.

“Fast horse, he's able to relax in the lead – he's not a run-off horse. I like that, and he always listens to the jockey. When I asked him, he took off again. Lucky to be around those horses.”

Twenty Six Black rallied from well back for second, one length up on Determined Kingdom. Alogon, Senbei, and early chaser Let My People Go rounded out the order of finish. Our Shot was eased but walked off, and the main-track-only Full Moon Madness stayed in the barn.

Bring Theband Home has won all four of his local starts, including his maiden score as a juvenile on the Saratoga dirt in 2022. But the rangy gelding took time to come into his own, and he’s finally fulfilling his potential at the age of five. 

“I think he's better,” Casse said. “I think also the cooler weather – he thrives up here. He looks magnificent. I don't think he's ever looked better. 

“He's fast and he's a big horse. He's 17 hands tall. He's big.”

Bring Theband Home will set his sights on the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint (G1). Sparingly raced for much of his career, as his record of 13-6-3-1 implies, the bay is expected to stay active on the way to Del Mar.

“Another one or two races, probably, and we'll try to get there. He's got enough now to get in,” Casse said of his $506,764 bankroll. 

Bring Theband Home is out of the Street Cry mare Tizatude, who is a half-sister to Grade 1-winning millionaire and sire Paynter. Tizatude’s dam, Tizso, is herself a full sister to Hall of Famer Tiznow, the only two-time hero of the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1), as well as to $2.8 million-earner Budroyale. Other family members include 2013 Preakness (G1) scorer Oxbow, millionaire Tarifa, and Grade 1 vixen Sweet Azteca, a candidate for the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1).