Champion Monomoy Girl’s little brother set for debut at Oaklawn Park

Oaklawn Park fans could be seeing double this year, with champion Monomoy Girl a candidate for the Grade 1 $700,000 Apple Blossom Handicap for older fillies and mares on April 14 and her 3-year-old full brother, Cowboy Diplomacy, scheduled to make his career debut in today’s seventh race.

Probable post time for the race at 6 furlongs is 4:14 p.m.

Cowboy Diplomacy has been based at Oaklawn for about two months, recording eight workouts for trainer Brad Cox and owners Pocket Aces Racing LLC and Madaket Stables LLC (Sol Kumin). A Dec. 17 breeze was not published because of heavy fog.

Cox and Kumin, as a co-owner, also campaign Monomoy Girl, who was named champion 3-year-old filly of 2018 after crossing the wire first in all seven starts, including the Grade 1 $2 million Breeders’ Cup Distaff on Nov. 3 at Churchill Downs.

Monomoy Girl and Cowboy Diplomacy, both chestnut, are by Tapizar out of the Henny Hughes mare, Drumette.

“They’re identical to physically look at,” Cox said. “For the most part, they’re very similar-looking horses. It’s hard to believe.

“Either he looks like a filly, or she looks like a colt. We’re hoping he has just a touch of the ability she has, and he’ll be all right because she’s obviously a racehorse.”

Agent Liz Crow (BSW Bloodstock) purchased Monomoy Girl for $100,000 at the 2016 Keeneland September Yearling Sale and was the underbidder on Cowboy Diplomacy, who sold to Pocket Aces Racing for $175,000 at the 2017 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling Sale.

Crow said during a recent visit to Oaklawn that she loved

Cowboy Diplomacy at the sale, but didn’t “have $175,000 at that point in the year. So, she approached Mark Wampler, Pocket Aces’ racing/bloodstock manager, about buying a piece of the colt.

Pocket Aces provides opportunities to individuals through “fractional ownership,” according to its website. Crow said Pocket Aces owns 75 percent of Cowboy Diplomacy and Kumin 25 percent.

Cowboy Diplomacy sold when Monomoy Girl had only made two career starts and just before she won the

$82,670 Rags to Riches Stakes for 2-year-old fillies in October

2017 at Churchill Downs, which was her dirt and stakes debut.

“I think it would have gone up quite a bit because Girl. he looked a lot like her at the “Their hips are built a little sale,” Crow said of the purchase differently,” Crow said. “There price. “He had a ton are a few things that are different of class and quality to him. I about them, but they’re think at that point and time it small things.” was the week of the Rags to Crow said minor shin issues Riches, so she wasn’t even a kept Cowboy Diplomacy stakes winner. She hadn’t even from running at 2. His training run on the dirt. She was just a sessions at Oaklawn have been two-time turf winner … if was highlighted by a swift 5-furlong there was year in between, like bullet workout from the gate in he was sold last year, I think :59 3-5 on Jan. 20. he would have brought a lot “It’s funny,” Crow said. “I more.” think he’s shown more in the

Crow said she was immediately mornings than she did initially struck by the “size” and because she wasn’t really highly “scope” of Cowboy Diplomacy thought of before she was and the similarities to Monomoy breezing in the beginning of

Oaklawn Park workouts her career.

“It took her a while to put it all together, whereas he seems to really be putting it together in the mornings. Breezing

:59 and change out of the gate wasn’t something she really did in the mornings.”

Monomoy Girl recently returned to Cox’s barn at Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans after a winter freshening in Florida. Cox said the Apple Blossom and Grade 1

$500,000 La Troienne Stakes on May 3 at Churchill Downs are being considered for Monomoy Girl’s 4-year-old debut.