Horse to Watch in 2019
With the retirement of Accelerate and City of Light following the Pegasus World Cup, racing lost two of its biggest stars of 2018. Fortunately, there are still plenty of highquality horses back for another year.
Monomoy Girl
The reigning champion 3-yearold filly begins 2019 as the most accomplished horse in training. Monomoy Girl piled up five G1 wins last year, capping her sophomore campaign with an impressive score in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. She isn’t likely to have an easy time establishing the same dominance at four, however. Midnight Bisou, the only filly to defeat Monomoy Girl last year – on a disqualification in the Cotillion Stakes – also returns. So does multiple G1 winner Elate, who missed most of 2018 because of injury. Chilean import Wow Cat, who closed out the year with a win in the Beldame (G1) and a second to Monomoy Girl in the Distaff, could be a force in the division.
Roy H
This back-to-back winner of the BC Sprint kicked off his 7-year-old campaign with a decisive victory in last month’s Palos Verdes Stakes (G2). Roy H is one of a group of five veteran sprinters who between them have won 23 graded races (eight of them G1s) over the past two years. While Roy H does most of his racing in California, his four rivals – Imperial Hint, Whitmore, Promises Fulfilled and Limousine Liberal – have been taking turns beating each other in a series of bang-up races in New York and Kentucky. Look for more of the same in 2019. Promises Fulfilled, who held his own against his elders as a 3-yearold, has the most upside here.
Catholic Boy and Yoshida
These versatile dual-surface stars arrived in Saratoga last summer, both with a G1 turf win on their resume. They departed with a G1 on dirt added, having romped in the Travers and Woodward, respectively, on the last two Saturdays of the meet. Catholic Boy hasn’t raced since being roughed up during an up-the-track finish in the BC Classic. The Japanese-bred Yoshida finished a close-up fourth in that race, and in his only start of 2019 ran sixth in the inaugural Pegasus World Cup Turf. Both horses are being considered for major races on both dirt and turf.
Catholic Boy and Yoshida would be welcome in a depleted older-male dirt division. The steady Gunnevera, who has made a career out of finishing second or third in big-money races, also returns. Battle of Midway and McKinzie, a close 1-2 in last month’s San Pasqual (G2), are among the division’s other contenders. So is the late-developing Leofric, who closed out a solid 2018 with a victory in the Clark Handicap (G1). Sistercharlie Horses bred outside the U.S. won more than half (19 of 35) of Grace 1 turf races in 2018. Sistercharlie accounted for four of them, including a narrow victory in the BC Filly & Mare Turf that clinched an Eclipse Award. The Irish-bred filly is tough to deny in a fight. The total margin of victory in her last three starts was less than a length.
Sistercharlie is trained by Chad Brown. Not surprisingly, so are two other top turf fillies, Rushing Fall and Newspaperofre-cord, the last two winners of the BC Juvenile Fillies Turf. Rushing Fall, who is a neck shy of being undefeated in seven career starts, has been brought along slowly. The daughter of More Than Ready won the Q. E. II in her final outing of 2018 and seems poised to achieve big things this year. Newspap-erofrecord, another Irishbred, is unbeaten in three starts.