Cox, Juddmonte have big Saturday at Churchill

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Poor start? No worries. Fulsome and Set Piece both spotted the opposition head starts in separate stakes Saturday at Churchill Downs, but the Juddmonte Farms homebreds bounded home easy winners under the wire the second time around.

Fulsome, with Florent Geroux riding, earned a career-best 97 Beyer Speed Figure in his eye-catching score in the Grade 3 Matt Winn and now joins Essential Quality, Mandaloun, and Caddo River as top-flight 3-year-olds in the powerhouse Brad Cox stable.

Cox said Monday that Fulsome, a winner in four of his last five starts, will be kept separate from those highly regarded stablemates for the time being.

:: Get Daily Racing Form Past Performances - the exclusive home of Beyer Speed Figures

“He came out of it really good,” said Cox. “There are plenty of options for 3-year-olds at this time of year. We’ll keep him going two turns on the dirt, that’s for sure.”

Set Piece, who earned a career-high 100 Beyer in rallying for a four-length triumph under Geroux in the Douglas Park, “had his best performance yet, at least visually,” said Cox. “He has really moved forward this spring.”

The Matt Winn and Douglas Park were among seven stakes run on a busy Stephen Foster Preview Day card. Several of those races serve as designed stepping-stones into the big Stephen Foster card on June 26, closing day of the 38-day spring meet. In fact, Set Piece might well run back in the Grade 2 Wise Dan on Foster Day, said Cox.

In all, Cox won three races Saturday for Juddmonte, with Snow House in an earlier allowance being the other. Through Sunday, when he won a co-featured allowance with Field Day (84 Beyer) for the Klein family, Cox led the spring-meet standings by a 14-10 margin over Mike Maker.

As for Juliet Foxtrot, another Juddmonte standout, she was not shipped to Santa Anita for the Grade 1 Gamely on Monday as had been planned because the 6-year-old mare “had some bloodwork come back one day last week that concerned us,” said Cox. “She was fine the next day, but I wasn’t going to take a chance and send her all the way out there under those circumstances.”

Juliet Foxtrot won the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley at Keeneland in her most recent start.