Monmouth Park: Perkins looks to continue hot streak in Friday turf sprint

OCEANPORT, N.J. – Ben Perkins Jr. hopes to keep the good times rolling Friday when he sends out Greatful Heir in the $42,000, first-level allowance feature for filly and mare turf sprinters at Monmouth Park.

Perkins, the leading trainer here in 2000, is coming off a bang-up week at Monmouth in which he saddled four and took home three wins and a second.

The big weekend gave him six wins for the meet, good for a six-way tie for second place and leaving him only one victory behind the leader, Bruce Alexander.

“We ran some of our horses in New York before Monmouth opened, and they had a race or two up there,” Perkins said. “It set them up good for the beginning here as opposed to having horses come off farms in the past. And then, the races just went right. A lot of times, you have horses sitting on good races, but you don’t get in the right spot or the race doesn’t go.

“It was just one of those weeks where every place we wanted to be, the race went.”

The week was a nice rebound for Perkins who finished tied for 16th at Monmouth in 2011.

“Probably not,” Perkins said of a run at the title. “We don’t over-race them and we don’t have a lot of claimers. We try to win our fair share by putting them in the right spots, but we probably don’t have enough to win the training title.”

In the Friday feature, Perkins sends out a 3-year-old making only her fourth start and her grass debut.

Greatful Heir, by Wildcat Heir, ran here twice last summer, winning first time out before missing by a neck in the Colleen Stakes.

She was no factor in her season debut on opening day.

“Wildcat Heir is a really good turf sire and some of his better horses are turf fillies and sprinters,” Perkins said. “We’ve been looking forward to getting her on the turf. We discount that first race back. She came up to the race good, but she wasn’t as settled as we’d like in the paddock and before the race. We’ll give her a pass on that one and hopefully she’ll act a little better.”

Five Star Momma has the rail in the eight-horse field after running fourth in an overnight stakes at Belmont Park.