Joint Return looks to end skid in Lighthouse Stakes
Which deep closer do you like in the $75,000 Lighthouse Stakes at Monmouth Park on Monday, Joint Return or Stiffed?
Jim DunleavySep 05, 2015
Which deep closer do you like in the $75,000 Lighthouse Stakes at Monmouth Park on Monday, Joint Return or Stiffed?
Two wide-open stakes, the Turf Amazon and the Greenwood Cup, will set the table for the featured race at Parx on Monday, the $300,000 Turf Monster. The $200,000 Turf Amazon, a five-furlong race for fillies and mares, has a field of 11. The Grade 3 Greenwood Cup, a 1 1/2-mile dirt race for 3-year-olds and up, has a field of eight.
Can Ironicus continue to get better? He might have to if he’s going to emerge victorious in Monday’s $250,000 Bernard Baruch Handicap, a Grade 2 event that drew a small but competitive field of seven and features the turf debut of two-time Grade 1 winner Constitution.
Silent Treat has finished a close second in both of her starts this year and will be looking to record her first win of the Woodbine meet in Monday’s $100,000 Avowal Stakes, an overnight stakes for older fillies and mares over seven furlongs on the turf course.
Trainer Mike Joiner prepared more than 50 young Quarter Horses for the 2015 racing season, and his program will be well represented Monday in the Grade 1, $3 million All American Futurity. Joiner will send out probable favorite First Valiant Sign and the improving McClintock B. The horses were among 10 who qualified for the 440-yard classic that closes out the meet at Ruidoso Downs.
The final Saturday of the Saratoga meeting includes four consecutive graded stakes starting with race 8 of 12, the Grade 3 Saranac for 3-year-old turfers, the Grade 1 Spinaway for 2-year-old fillies, the Grade 1 Woodward for older males, and the Grade 3 Glens Falls for older long-distance turf fillies and mares. The shortest price among the quartet is likely to be Liam’s Map in a Woodward where two trainers account for three-quarters of the field: Todd Pletcher sends out four of them, including Liam’s Map, while Jimmy Jerkens will saddle both Effinex and Wicked Strong.
Trainer Jimmy Jerkens saddles Wicked Strong (#1, ML 5-1) and Effinex (#7, ML 4-1) in Saturday's 10th race at Saratoga, the Grade 1 Woodward Stakes. Since Jan., 1, 2014, Jerkens is winning at a 25 percent clip in graded stakes races, for a return on investment of $3.82. Check out the Positive ROI report as part of DRF Plus. Sign up for DRF Plus here.
The Grade 3 Turf Monster Handicap at Parx Racing on Monday has drawn the salty kind of group expected in Mid-Atlantic turf-sprint stakes. Ben’s Cat will run in the Turf Monster for the fifth straight year. He won the race in 2011 and 2012 and was second, beaten a neck, last year and third, beaten three-quarters of a length, in 2013.
Ageless ran down Leigh Court going six furlongs on Woodbine turf July 26 in the Royal North Stakes, but that outcome might prove difficult to repeat Monday in the Presque Isle Masters.
Lord Rosberg makes his belated return in the $60,000 Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society Sales Stakes at Hastings on Monday.