Affable Monarch's debut win has connections considering Champagne Stakes
While Double Thunder won the $200,000 Sapling Stakes on Saturday, earning a 73 Beyer Speed Figure and a start next month in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland, another 2-year-old at Monmouth caught the eye last weekend.
That was Affable Monarch, a colt bred to run long who stormed home from the back of the pack to win a maiden sprint, race 4 on Monday, by more than six lengths, going away. Affable Monarch got a modest Beyer of 60 but made a stronger visual impression and might better suit route racing than sprints.
“The way he ran and galloped out, I think he wants to go longer for sure,” said Jorge Duarte Jr., who trains Affable Monarch for his breeder, Richard Santulli’s Colts Neck Stable.
Affable Monarch was the second winner from the first crop of the late, great Arrogate, and is out of the mare Social Queen, making him a half-brother to Colts Neck’s Grade 1 turf winner Force the Pass. Affable Monarch’s yearling brother, a colt by Speightstown, is consigned as Hip No. 154 to Keeneland’s September sale.
Affable Monarch, a large, raw colt, will be considered for the one-mile Champagne Stakes on Oct. 2 at Belmont, Duarte said.