Mr. Monomoy no slouch, either

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – He still has a long way to go to live up to his older sister’s legacy, but Mr. Monomoy began his own scrapbook Saturday with a 5 1/2-length romp in a 6 1/2-furlong maiden race at Churchill Downs.

It was an auspicious second start for Mr. Monomoy, a 2-year-old half-brother to last year’s 3-year-old filly champion Monomoy Girl, following a troubled debut last month at Keeneland. The son of Palace Malice earned a 74 Beyer Speed Figure.

“I think he’s cut out to be a good horse, and we’re going to treat him that way,” said Brad Cox, who trains the $60,000 weanling purchase for Madaket Stables, Michael Dubb, and Doheny Racing. “He’ll get his chances coming up at Fair Grounds.”

Monomoy Girl, a 4-year-old filly by Tapizar, scored her two biggest wins at Churchill – the Kentucky Oaks and Breeders’ Cup Distaff – on her way to becoming the champion 3-year-old filly of 2018. Both she and Mr. Monomoy were produced by Drumette, by Henny Hughes.

The flashy victory wasn’t the only one here Saturday by a modest purchase in a 2-year-old maiden race. Swiss Skydiver, a Daredevil filly who cost $35,000 as a yearling, earned a 76 Beyer in a 5 1/2-length debut triumph for trainer Kenny McPeek.

Allowance races in Single 6

Three straight allowances (races 7, 8, 9) serve as co-features at Churchill on Wednesday, when a rare five-day week lacking a stakes race will get under way at 1 p.m. Eastern.

All three co-features not only are in a Single 6 sequence (races 5-10) with a $151,379 jackpot – the first six-figure carryover at this meet – but also in the late pick five (races 6-10), which offers a carryover ($119,514) for the second time in less than a week.

Race 7 is a $97,000 firstlevel turf route that has a pair of sharp last-out Keeneland maiden winners – Pass the Plate and Across – among the likely favorites in an oversubscribed field of 2-year-old fillies.

Race 8 is a $97,000 main-track mile in which the $2.6 million purchase Gun It will try to get through his first allowance condition as the program favorite in a field of eight 3-year-olds and up.

Race 9 is a $99,000 secondlevel race with a field of 12 3-year-olds and up going seven furlongs. The morning line has Curate as the 9-2 favorite, which illustrates how competitive a group it is.

A calendar quirk is responsible for Churchill omitting a stakes from the schedule this week. Most fall meets run 21 days at Churchill, but a late Thanksgiving (Nov. 28) led to a 26-day schedule this year. The 2020 fall meet will revert to the norm.

◗ The late pick five here last Saturday resulted in $792,712 in new bets chasing a $85,299 carryover.

Horsemen staying for Turfway

With vastly improved purses in the maiden-special and allowance categories at Turfway Park, Declan Cannon is among the first riders to declare that he will be staying put in Kentucky through the winter instead of moving elsewhere.

Churchill Downs Inc. agreed last month to buy Turfway, the northern Kentucky track that had seen business plummet in recent years. Including bonuses from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund, maiden races start at $46,000 and allowances at $46,500, more than double the level to which they had fallen. Nearly four months of winter action starts Dec. 4.

Trainers who intend to race considerably more at Turfway than in recent seasons include Ian Wilkes, Ben Colebrook, Ignacio Correas, Vicki Oliver, and Jack Sisterson. They’ll join Turfway mainstays such as Mike Maker and Wesley Ward in making for a more competitive product.

Cannon, 32, rode 21 winners last winter at Tampa Bay Downs. He has five wins at the current Churchill meet after winning four at Keeneland.

Churchill has announced it will undertake a massive renovation of Turfway as soon as racing ends in late March.

◗ Wednesday marks the first day here for jockey Martin Garcia, who recently announced his departure from Southern California to try a Midwest circuit. Garcia, who has won such major races as the Preakness and Breeders’ Cup Classic, is named on two mounts Wednesday and three Thursday.

◗ Trainer Peter Miller won with all three starters here last weekend and now has won with 12 of his last 22 Churchill starters, dating to the spring meet. One of his Saturday winners came in a second-level allowance with Proud Emma, a 3-year-old filly who fared respectably in three graded stakes earlier this year. Miller is based primarily in Southern California.

◗ Jockey Florent Geroux has gone 7 for 16 since returning from a four-week absence, with Mr. Misunderstood in the Grade 3 River City on Saturday among his winners. Geroux returned Nov. 9 after being sidelined with a broken sternum suffered in an Oct. 13 training spill at Keeneland.

◗ Jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. is returning to his Louisiana homeland for the winter after going one-and-done at Gulfstream Park last year. Hernandez will be among the many Churchill jockeys riding regularly at Fair Grounds in New Orleans when the fall meet ends Dec. 1. Hernandez went 23 for 258 at the 2018-19 Gulfstream meet.