Mystik Dan, right, wins the Kentucky Derby in a photo finish, on May 4, 2024. Forever Young, with Ryusei Sakai up, center, finished third and Sierra Leone, left, with Tyler Gaffalione up, finished second. Michael Clevenger and Christopher Granger / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Brown Confident in Stephen Foster Entrant Sierra Leone

Originally posted on Horse Racing on SI | By Mary Rufo | Last updated Jun 24, 2025 6:31 PM ET

Trainer Chad Brown is confident that his first Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Sierra Leone will return to winning form in Saturday’s Grade 1 Stephen Foster at Churchill Downs.

The four-year-old colt will make his second start of his four-year-old campaign at a track he knows— and against familiar company. The $2.3 million yearling purchase entered the 2024 Kentucky Derby starting gate as second choice on the tote behind Repole Stable homebred Fierceness. Mystik Dan, also entered in the Stephen Foster, edged Sierra Leone out in a heart-pounding finish to clinch the Run for the Roses.

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Though Sierra Leone didn’t win his next few summer starts, he never finished worse than third and continued knocking on the door of another marquee victory. Overlooked at 6-1, the Chad Brown trainee took advantage of a blistering pace in the Breeders’ Cup Classic to visit the Winners’ Circle for the first time since the Grade 1 Blue Grass earlier that spring.

Sierra Leone’s connections opted to keep their son of Gun Runner in training in 2025, though his first start back in the Grade 2 New Orleans Classic, he finished a disappointing third. “I thought he ran fine. It was disappointing he didn’t win but in hindsight, I used it as a backup plan when he couldn’t make Saudi,” said Brown.

Brown is referring to the initial plan to run Sierra Leone in the Saudi Cup, the richest race in the world with a purse of $20 million. Unfortunately, the colt developed an abscess which took him out of consideration for the race. Brown pivoted to the New Orleans Classic.

“I picked New Orleans because he won the Risen Star there last year in a non-Lasix race,” said Brown. The New Orleans Classic, however, is run with Lasix permitted, and Sierra Leone had never been administered the medication in his racing career. Brown later added, “In hindsight, I wish I didn’t send him over there to be beaten that way.”

Still, Sierra Leone came out of the race well. Brown is happy with the way the colt is working ahead of another Grade 1 attempt. “Training great. I got him back to Belmont where he’s happiest. The horse is training just like he was before the Classic,” Brown said.

Brown said the layoff was simply due to the lack of races at a mile and an eighth or longer.

Sierra Leone will ship to Saratoga Race Course after the Stephen Foster to prepare for the Grade 1 Whitney Stakes.