Bishops Bay stays on track with Salvator Mile romp
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Bishops Bay earned a high 97 Beyer Speed Figure and beat the subsequent multiple graded-stakes winner First Mission when he debuted in February 2023. Finally, he’s fulfilling that early promise. Since returning from a layoff of more than 16 months, Bishops Bay, while carefully managed, has four wins and a close second from five starts, and on Saturday at Monmouth, he annexed his third straight stakes race, winning the Grade 3, $150,000 Salvator Mile by five lengths.
It was really not even that close. Bishops Bay ($2.60) got a perfect pressing trip under Flavien Prat, overwhelmed pace rival Nelson Avenue in upper stretch, and probably idled from the furlong grounds to the wire with no rival anywhere near him. He stopped the timer in 1:37.16 over a sloppy, sealed track that favored front-runners after rain fell earlier in the afternoon. Nelson Avenue finished second by 3 3/4 lengths over Surface to Air.
Brad Cox, overloaded with older dirt-route horses, trains Bishops Bay for Spendthrift Farm, Steve Landers, Martin Schwartz, Michael Dubb, and Ten Strike Racing. Bishops Bay is by Uncle Mo out of Catch My Drift, by Pioneerof the Nile, and was bred in Kentucky by WinStar Farm.
Bishops Bay's Salvator Mile followed victory in the Grade 3 Westchester, where in Quint’s Brew he beat a better horse than he met Saturday, and a restricted Oaklawn Park stakes. Bishops Bay has knocked out two Grade 3s. Cox might be seeking a bigger prize next time.
Lady's Secret
Majestic Oops, who ran for a $12,500 claiming price four times during 2023 and 2024, won her second straight six-figure stakes race when she landed the $100,000 Lady’s Secret by 4 1/4 lengths to close Monmouth’s card Saturday.
Left in her wake was odds-on favorite Occult, who raced against a speed-favoring track profile trying to rally from well off the pace and lost ground on the winner from the stretch call to the finish. Occult was two lengths better than her third-place, Chad Brown-trained stablemate, Catherine Wheel, with the other two far, far behind. Gun Song and Into Amore were scratched.
Majestic Oops tracked a solid half-mile split of 47.56 set by Dream Concert, who wound up last, before seizing command partway around the far turn. No one got close to her, with Majestic Oops running 1 1/16 miles over a sloppy, sealed track in 1:44.32. She paid $6.60 as the second choice.
Majestic Oops is a California-bred by Majestic Harbor and out of the Olmodovar mare Miss Oops. Dan Ward trains her for Sublime Stable and one of her breeders, Janet Kropp.
Five-year-old Majestic Oops, now a seven-time winner from 29 starts, spent much of her career racing in Northern California and Canada, and Ward only took over her training this winter at Oaklawn Park. There, the mare improved mightily through the winter, winning a rich first-level allowance race before capturing the $200,000 Dig A Diamond on April 26. Apparently, that form has carried from spring to summer and from Arkansas to the Jersey Shore.
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