Counterspy in best form for Mr. Prospector

Robert Mosco has notched a single stakes victory during a training career dating back to 1992. Counterspy, a horse from his Parx Racing-based barn, might be favored to give Mosco his second in the $100,000 Mr. Prospector on Monday at Monmouth Park.

Counterspy has won four straight races since Mosco and owner Jack Armstrong claimed him for $40,000 out of a blowout victory Feb. 7 at Parx. Having climbed three rungs on the allowance ladder, Counterspy, a 4-year-old Gun Runner gelding, gets his first career stakes start in the Mr. Prospector, a six-furlong dirt race that drew eight entrants.

There’s nothing to suggest Counterspy in his current condition doesn’t fit with his Mr. Prospector opponents.

A year ago, Little Vic and Dean Delivers would have presented superior form, but both horses have entered a period of obvious decline. Hollywood Jet finished a mild and distant second in this race in 2023 and hasn’t even gotten back to that performance level since. Khozeiress has never hit a mark that ought to be high enough to win Monday. Hurricane J has been sixth and seventh in his three stakes starts. And Machen’s Ridge doesn’t belong in the race.

That leaves Bump N Run, another 4-year-old who had been on a steady an arc of improvement until taking a step back April 20 in a turf experiment. A return to dirt could bring Bump N Run back to his best, but that peak isn’t as high as Counterspy’s.

Counterspy won once in eight starts while trained by Mark Casse before being sold at auction for $47,000 in November 2023. He returned to racing this past January, offered for a $50,000 claiming price in his first start with trainer Jamie Ness. Counterspy finished a one-paced fifth in the race, coincidentally, won by Bump N Run, then was dropped to $40,000 and romped in an allowance/optional-claimer by more than seven lengths – the race from which Mosco and Armstrong took him.

Ness, one of the highest-percentage volume trainers in North America, has, statistically, at least, become an increasingly better target for claims. Over a three-year period, horses claimed from him won their subsequent start 12 percent of the time. During the last two years, that rate has risen to 14 percent and through the last year stands at 17 percent.

Mosco and Armstrong plunked Counterspy into a first-level allowance and the horse rolled to an easy win, doing so in a manner pertinent to the Mr. Prospector. That first race for Mosco marked Counterspy’s only sprint during this four-race winning streak. In the three others, he has gone to the lead in two-turn contests and galloped the opposition into the ground, but in that six-furlong contest, Counterspy was content to sit fourth behind the speed, launch a winning rally at the quarter pole.

With plenty of pace signed on Monday, a similar journey would be ideal. And if Counterspy gets the right trip and holds his form, he’ll join Admiral Abe, who won a Pennsylvania-bred race in August 2021, as Mosco’s only stakes winners.

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