Berned's rally pays off in Molly Pitcher Stakes

Berned started cooking down the backstretch and blew the lid off the tiring leaders at the top of the homestretch, and even though her long sustained run started to cool at the sixteenth pole, she had enough left to hold off onrushing Dream Call and win the Grade 3, $100,000 Molly Pitcher Stakes by three quarters of a length Sunday at Monmouth Park.

It was a good win for Berned and an important win, as well. Berned cost $550,000 at auction and has a high-end pedigree - by Bernardini and out of the Giant’s Causeway mare, First Passage. She had won a listed stakes race but this, her fifth win from 15 starts, was her first in graded-stakes competition.

No doubt Berned, trained by Graham Motion for R Masiello, West Point Thoroughbreds, and C Larsen, ran a powerful race in the Molly Pitcher, but she got help from a strong pace and from her jockey, Joe Bravo. Berned raced at the tail of the field as Divine Miss Grey, the odds-on favorite, set out for the lead, but Unchained Melody is a confirmed front-runner herself and after an opening quarter-mile in 23.51 seconds, Divine Miss Grey ran her second quarter-mile in 23.29 for a half in 46.80.

By then, Berned had commenced her rally, Bravo briefly steering out than guiding his filly to the rail as she passed all but the top two. Berned was full of run at the quarter-pole as Bravo tipped her outside the tiring pacesetters and she gobbled them up to make the top, but even as Berned went clear, deep-closing Dreamcall was on the move. Dreamcall rallied relentlessly but the wire cut short her move as Berned stopped the timer in 1:44.52 for 1 1/16 miles on a fast track. Divine Miss Grey battled on and managed to hold third.

“When we got to the top of the stretch, I knew I had the two in front beat,” Bravo said. “The only thing I was worried about from that point was the horse tracking me.”

Berned ($10.20) has an affinity for Monmouth, having won the Serena’s Song earlier this meet. The Molly Pitcher ran her local record to three wins from three starts while giving the filly’s residual value a strong blast of heat.