Mominou looking to double up

It’s been a good several weeks for trainer Jimmy Toner. Hawkish won the Penn Mile and looks like a force in the 3-year-old turf division, and Manitoulin, improving markedly in his second start of the season, came close to winning the Grade 1 Manhattan at Belmont Park.

Friday, one of Toner’s four winners this Belmont meeting, Mominou, will try for a second straight victory as one of eight entrants in the co-featured eighth race.

Race 8 (post time 6:50 Eastern) is a six-furlong turf race with a basic second-level allowance condition and a $62,500 claiming option. Co-featured race 3 has similar conditions but is carded for 1 1/16 miles on dirt and has no sex restriction.

Mominou showed next to nothing in a pair of dirt races to start her career last fall, but blasted home a blowout maiden winner when switched to turf March 4 at Gulfstream Park. Mominou might have run too well that day, as she appeared to regress April 12 with a second in a first-level allowance race at Belmont. That, at least, is part of the narrative her supporters might construct. Mominou was beaten two lengths that day by Okinawa, a filly she meets again Friday, but Mominou stepped forward again clearing her first allowance condition in a seven-furlong turf race May 31 at Belmont and might now be better equipped to deal with Okinawa.

Okinawa, the 9-5 morningline favorite from the Chad Brown barn, franked the form of that April 12 race when she returned with a second at this class level. Okinawa, however, developed earlier than Mominou and is on the other side of a year-plus layoff, and at a better price it is Mominou who appears to possess superior upside Friday.

The Todd Pletcher-trained Jumby Bay appears to be race’s other key contender as she turns back to a sprint from one mile while racing in blinkers again after they were removed two starts ago. If the race stays on turf it goes with a maximum seven runners since Picture Day is entered for the main track only.

A couple win-shy types should vie for favoritism in race 3. Realm has lost 14 straight starts and has won only twice in a 20-race career, but turned in a strong performance – bidding into a hot pace and making the lead at the stretch call – finishing third June 1 in this kind of allowance race at Belmont. Realm has worked back three times since that start and has run only three times since trainer Barclay Tagg removed blinkers from his race-day equipment. Maybe Realm is a changed horse, but at 2-1 on the morning line, that might not be worth betting on.

Uncle Sigh is listed as the 9-5 morning-line favorite but has only six wins compared to 10 runner-up finishes from 30 starts, and all his recent victories have come in New York-bred competition. Both he and Realm benefit from the stark fact that only three others are entered.