Cox brings stakes-winning tour to Ellis Park

The Brad Cox victory train seeks to make another stop on its national tour Sunday.

Cox will be on hand at Ellis Park for the annual showcase event at the western Kentucky track, the $125,000 Groupie Doll Stakes. He will saddle the morning-line favorite Moonlit Garden when the one-mile Groupie Doll is run for the 38th time.

Moonlit Garden “is doing phenomenal,” said Cox, who won five stakes between four different tracks last weekend, including the Grade 1 Test at Saratoga with Covfefe and Grade 2 Yellow Ribbon at Del Mar with Beau Recall. “I’m going to feel very confident about leading her over there.”

Moonlit Garden was bought privately this spring by Jerry Marks and turned over to Cox after finishing last of five in the Doubledogdare at Keeneland. She was a coasting winner of the July 6 Iowa Distaff at Prairie Meadows in her only start for the new connections.

“She’s done nothing but good, before and after the Iowa race,” said Cox, who has won two of the last four runnings of the Groupie Doll with Call Pat (2015) and Tiger Moth (2017).

Moonlit Garden, with Florent Geroux to ride, will break from post 5 in a field of six fillies and mares in the Groupie Doll, the eighth of 10 races on a Sunday card that starts at 12:50 p.m. Central. Post time for the feature is 4:10.

Surely the top threat to derailing the Cox locomotive is Go Google Yourself, who will start alongside in post 4 with Brian Hernandez Jr. aboard. The 4-year-old filly finished first or second in five straight races prior to running fourth behind a trio of Grade 1 winners – Elate, Blue Prize, and She’s a Julie – in the June 15 Fleur de Lis at her home base, Churchill Downs.

Hernandez has ridden Go Google Yourself for owner-breeder Samantha Siegel and trainer Paul McGee on three occasions, with a close second behind Electric Forest in the Doubledogdare being the most recent.

“It looks like if we can work out a trip like we did in the Doubledogdare we should be in good shape,” said Hernandez.

Another 4-year-old filly, Divine Queen (post 1, Calvin Borel), is the third choice on the program. A 51-1 winner in a tight photo over Go Google Yourself last September in the Dogwood at Churchill, Divine Queen is trained by her co-breeder and co-owner Buff Bradley.

It was Bradley who trained the race namesake, Groupie Doll, to back-to-back Eclipse Awards as the top filly-mare sprinter in 2012 and 2013. As a 3-year-old of 2011, Groupie Doll enjoyed an early breakthrough by thrashing older horses in what was then known as the Gardenia Stakes, which was renamed in 2015 in recognition of her stellar career.

This is the first time the Groupie Doll has not been a Grade 3 race since 1990. The downgrading came despite the 2018 winner, Champagne Problems, subsequently finishing second to Blue Prize in both the Grade 3 Locust Grove and Grade 1 Spinster.

Rounding out the Groupie Doll lineup are Auspicious Babe, My Mertie, and Sweet Arithmetic.

Ten go in Ellis Derby

A well-matched field of 10 3-year-olds will also race a mile out of the clubhouse elbow chute some 30 minutes later when the $100,000 Ellis Park Derby (race 9, 4:40) is run for the second time.

Gray Magician, runner-up behind Mr. Money in the Indiana Derby last month, is listed as a lukewarm morning-line favorite over Super Steed, Whiskey Echo, and Night Ops.

Based at Churchill for trainer Peter Miller, Gray Magician finished last of 19 in the Kentucky Derby prior to rebounding with a 96 Beyer in the Indiana Derby in his next start.

Super Steed, trained by Larry Jones, brings the most intriguing form to the race. The Super Saver colt will be making his first start in nearly six months, having stunned Oaklawn Park fans by winning the Feb. 18 Southwest at 62-1 before being forced to the sidelines with slight bone bruising.