On Sunday at Santa Anita, the featured race is the $200,000 Monrovia Stakes. A Grade 2 event carded at about six and a half furlongs on the downhill turf course, the stakes race has drawn a field of twelve fillies and mares.
The veteran mare Ageless has been tabbed as the morning line favorite at odds of 3-1 for trainer Arnaud Delacour. A bay daughter of Successful Appeal, the seven-year-old mare has won eleven of her 22 starts and is a multiple graded stakes winner. She is coming into this race off of two straight victories and will be fresh having had three months since her last start, a win in the Buffalo Trace Franklin County Stakes. Julian Leparoux will be aboard and they will break from post eleven.
Second choice at morning line odds of 4-1 is Shrinking Violet for trainer Wesley Ward. A five-year-old daughter of Congaree, she is an eight-time winner and notched her first graded stakes win in the 2015 edition of the Monrovia Stakes (G2). She has had four months off since finishing ninth in the Kentucky Downs Ladies Sprint Stakes and will break from post six under jockey Kent Desormeaux.
Also in the field at morning line odds of 6-1 is Baruta (BRZ) for trainer Richard Mandella. A six-year-old daughter of Crimson Tide (IRE), she is a six-time career winner and earned her first graded stakes victory two starts back in the Senator Ken Maddy Stakes (G3) at Santa Anita. She is trying to rebound after finishing fourteenth in the Matriarch Stakes (G1) and will have Flavien Prat aboard from the outside.
The field is set for the $1 million Haskell, where Nyquist will be trying to re-stake his claim as the top three-year-old in the country.
On Sunday at Monmouth Park, the featured race is the $300,000 United Nations Stakes. Scheduled to be run at a mile and three-eighths on the turf, the Grade 1 event has drawn a field of ten colts and geldings.
On Sunday at Monmouth Park, the featured race is the $150,000 Pegasus Stakes, a key prep race for the Haskell Invitational (G1). The Grade 3 event will be contested at a mile and a sixteenth and has drawn a field of seven three-year-olds.
With five grade 1 races and a grade 2, the undercard for the June 11 Belmont stakes could be the best single day of racing on the calendar outside of the Breeders’ Cup.
Leave a comment