Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Cox using Ruffian as step two in Monomoy Girl’s comeback
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Brad Cox understands that Monomoy Girl will have to improve to compete later in the year with Midnight Bisou and the upper echelon of the older filly and mare division. In Saturday’s Grade 2, $150,000 Ruffian Stakes at Belmont Park, Monomoy Girl seems to have found an ideal spot for taking the next step toward doing just that.
Monomoy Girl, the champion 3-year-old filly of 2018, appears to tower over her four rivals in Saturday’s Ruffian, a one-turn mile that serves as the final graded stakes of the abbreviated Belmont spring/summer meet. With a short field and the likelihood of Monomoy Girl being odds of 1-5 or shorter, the Ruffian is carded as race 4 on the 10-race card. There will be no show wagering.
Vexatious and Always Shopping were cross-entered in Saturday’s Delaware Handicap, but their trainers said Thursday they would run in the Ruffian.
Monomoy Girl missed her entire 4-year-old campaign due to a severe bout of colic followed by a pulled muscle. On May 16, her first start in 18 months, Monomoy Girl won a 1 1/16-mile allowance by 2 3/4 lengths at Churchill Downs.
“Obviously, a horse coming off a year and a half layoff, especially fillies or mares, there’s always a little bit of a question whether they’re going to return and be as competitive as they were before,” Cox said. “That answered the question of her being competitive in the afternoon.
“She’s improved since that race,” Cox added. “Her works were very steady leading to her return, and she certainly has not regressed at all. I’m super pleased with how she’s trained.”
Cox said “we still got screws
to tighten on her” before Monomoy Girl is ready to tackle Midnight Bisou, a filly she finished in front of three times in 2018, though she was disqualified from one of those wins. Still, Cox said, the goal with Monomoy Girl is the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, where she could possibly meet Midnight Bisou, the champion older female of 2019.
First things first. Saturday, Midnight Bisou will break from the outside post under Florent Geroux and could find herself on the lead early. Mother Mother, trained by Bob Baffert, could show speed under Manny Franco from post 2.
Vexatious has not won since August 2018, when she was victorious in a listed turf stakes at Del Mar. She is going turf to dirt, and the last time she did that, she came within a neck of Blue Prize in last year’s Summer Colony Stakes at Saratoga. Blue Prize came back to win the Spinster and Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
Vexatious finished third in a turf allowance June 6 at Churchill.
“It was a tough enough allowance race on the grass,” trainer Jack Sisterson said. “I think she’s versatile and is as good on the dirt as on the turf. If she could run back to her Saratoga race, she can be as good as anyone.”
Jose Lezcano rides Vexatious from post 3.
Piedi Bianchi is stretching out off a trio of six-furlong races during the winter at Aqueduct and is getting blinkers. Always Shopping is looking for her first victory since she won the Grade 2 Gazelle in April 2019.