The betting public has come to expect results when Brittany Russell-trained horses compete in Maryland, where she has won four training titles. Her win totals have consistently increased in just over five years of training, and her horses have connected in 2023 at a 28% rate with 65 victories from 236 starts through June 6.
Now, her success is extending beyond Maryland and Delaware, where the 33-year-old trainer also keeps a stable of horses.
She won the April 8 Carter Handicap (G1) at Aqueduct Racetrack with Doppelganger , a horse who provided Russell and jockey Jevian Toledo with their first grade 1 wins. And on Belmont Stakes Day, June 10, they go for a second straight top-level win when Doppelganger returns in the $1 million Metropolitan Handicap (G1), a race referred to as the Met Mile.
In other upcoming graded races, Russell and Toledo also team up June 9 at Belmont Park in the Acorn Stakes (G1) with Jim Bakke and Gerald Isbister's up-and-coming Goodgirl Badhabits, and Saturday with longshot Fort Warren in the seven-furlong Woody Stephens Stakes (G1) at Belmont Park, with her husband, jockey Sheldon Russell, booked to ride.
Matched against Cody's Wish , Repo Rocks, Zandon , Charge It , White Abarrio, and others, Doppelganger is a 20-1 outsider on the morning line, but he was dismissed in the Carter, as well. Off at odds of more than 17-1 in a six-horse field, he outkicked favored Repo Rocks to win by 1 1/4 lengths.
"We know what we're getting into here. Look, he's going to have to run the best race of his life," his trainer said. "You have to be in it to win it. You have to take some big swings."
As difficult a race as the Met Mile is, Doppelganger has the credentials to compete. The 4-year-old Into Mischief colt is 3-for-3 in 2023 for Russell, winning an allowance and allowance optional claimer at Laurel Park prior to the Carter, which came after he picked up two graded placings earlier in his career when stabled in California with Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert. He was sent east to Russell last summer by the SF Racing, Starlight Racing, and Madaket Stables-headed ownership group, though the colt ultimately would miss racing over the second half of 2022, needing time to rest after not training to Russell's satisfaction.
That same ownership group also campaigns Fort Warren, a Curlin 3-year-old who captured an allowance optional claimer at Pimlico Race Course May 19 in his first race for Russell and his first start since a third-place finish in the third in the Jan. 29 San Vicente Stakes (G2) at Santa Anita Park for Baffert. Before that, he won his debut at Santa Anita Oct. 30.
The two colts are part of a group of about a half dozen horses Russell trains in Maryland for the ownership group, said SF Racing's Tom Ryan, who serves as managing partner.
"It seemed like a good 'B' circuit to have available to us with colts that maybe didn't have enough speed to train in California or colts that didn't get over the surface in California as well as they might," Ryan said. "Every horse doesn't suit every track. We try to position them as carefully as we can to try to get the best result possible."
Though Baffert is the group's primary trainer—he starts Preakness Stakes (G1) winner National Treasure for them in the Belmont Stakes (G1) and, earlier on Saturday's undercard, Fort Bragg in the Woody Stephens—Russell and Brendan Walsh are two other trainers being utilized by the ownership for horses the group sees as being better suited to racing outside Baffert's base in Southern California. The Walsh-trained Gilmore gives the owners a third starter in the Woody Stephens.
"Whether it's competition or conditions available to them on the East Coast, we're trying to build a resume to sell them into a racehorse sale, or with a horse like Doppelganger, develop them into a grade 1 winner and give him a chance to become a mainstream North American stallion," Ryan said.
Sol Kumin of Madaket Stables recommended Russell as a trainer for the group, with Russell having previously trained a couple of horses for him. Other partners, such as Jack Wolf, co-founder of Starlight Racing, met her for just the first time around the time of the May 20 Preakness.
"Very professional," Wolf said of Russell. "She places these horses where they need to be placed. She gives them good spacing. And you need to get good stock, too—and she's getting a lot better stock. I guess if you do all those things, you win at the rate she's winning at. She's the real deal."
Though Russell was not at Aqueduct for Doppelganger's Carter, with her staff traveling to race the horse, she will be at Belmont Park later this week along with some family members, including her mother-in-law and her young children, Edy and Rye.
"Honestly, they love to come to the races," she said. "My daughter, she'll be 4 and she just thinks horse racing is the greatest thing ever, already. We're kind of lucky we can share it with them. Yeah, it's tough, but why do we work so hard if we can't share it with our family?"
Crediting her staff for their assistance in Maryland and Delaware, Russell is looking forward to the experience during a power-packed week of New York racing.
"It's important moments like that that I obviously have to be there," she said.
