‘Monster’ Monomoy Girl eyes Oaklawn start
Trainer Brad Cox plans a Presidents Day surprise at Oaklawn Park.
Champion racemare Monomoy Girl is penciled in for the Feb. 15 running of the Grade
3 $250,000 Bayakoa Stakes for older females. The Oaklawn appearance would be the first for the 6-year-old daughter of the late Tapizar, who scored her trainer’s first Grade 1 victory in the filly’s 3-year-old championship season, 2018.
Monomoy Girl is based at Fair Grounds, where she has recorded two workouts since completing an unbeaten 2020 campaign ( 4 for 4) with a 1
3/4- length decision in the $ 2 million Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Distaff Nov. 7 at Keeneland.
Spendthrift Farm purchased Monomoy Girl for $9.5 million the following day at Fasig-Tipton’s Kentucky Fall Mixed Sale and chose to keep her in training with Cox in 2021. She won the BC Distaff and Kentucky
Oaks as a 3-year-old in 2018 but missed the entire 2019 season. Her career record is 13 for 15 with earnings of $4,426,818.
“Honestly, with her breeze this past weekend, she’s probably a little ahead of schedule, as far as where I thought she would be,” Cox said after Monomoy Girl worked a half-mile in
48.80 seconds Sunday morning. “We never took her out of training. We just backed off her. She’s as good as ever, to be honest with you. She’s a monster.”
Other Oaklawn targets in the older filly- and- mare division include the Grade 2 $350,000 Azeri March 13 and the Grade 1
$1 million Apple Blossom Handicap April 17.
Cox hinted that the 1 1/ 16mile Azeri might mark the
4-year-old debut of Grade 1 winner Shedaresthedevil, whose owners include Hot Springs horseman Staton Flurry. The filly won Oaklawn’s Grade 3 Honeybee before avenging a
local defeat to Swiss Skydiver in the Kentucky Oaks Sept. 4. In her next race after the Oaks, Swiss Skydiver beat males in the Preakness.
Shedaresthedevil placed third in the Grade 1 Spinster at Keeneland, her first start against older horses, before a 60-day break.
“Just kind of knocking the dust off her,” said Cox, Oaklawn’s third-leading trainer last year. “She got a good break, a well-deserved break. No physical issues. Just thought she deserved some time. … I thought it was a wise decision by the ownership group to just give her the break.”
Cox said Shedaresthedevil is pointing to the 2021 Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar in Southern California, Cox said.
• Grade 2 winner Keepmeinmind, a Kentucky Derby prospect for trainer Robertino Diodoro, is back in training. The son of Laoban worked a fast-rated half-mile in 50 2-5 seconds Wednesday at Oaklawn, his first breeze since winning the Kentucky Jockey Club Nov. 28 at Churchil Downs.
With regular jockey David Cohen up, Keepmeinmind’s workout ranked 39th of 94 at the distance. He had been in light training at Kentucky’s WinStar Farm after a fall campaign that included a third-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Keeneland.
“Very easy half with a nice long gallop out,” Cohen said. “Happy to get back on him. He seemed to have matured since his last race. The time at WinStar did him a lot of good.”
Diodoro, Oaklawn’s leading trainer last year, said Keepmeinmind is possible for the Grade 3 $750,000 Southwest Feb. 15 at Oaklawn. The colt has 18 points to rank second in the early Kentucky Derby leaderboard.