Eskenformoney ready to break through in Lady's Secret
Eskenformoney has finished third or better in all three of her starts at Monmouth Park but has yet to win there. She returns to the New Jersey track as the class of a six-horse field for Sunday’s $75,000 Lady’s Secret Stakes.
Grade 3 winner Eskenformoney first came to Monmouth in the summer of 2015, finishing second to Delightful Joy in the Grade 3 Monmouth Oaks. Last summer, she finished third in the Lady’s Secret behind Grade 1 winner Angela Renee and Genre, who went on to place in a Grade 1. The Lady’s Secret is a prep for the Grade 3 Molly Pitcher, and last year Genre came back to defeat Eskenformoney by a neck in that race.
The well-traveled Eskenformoney posted the first stakes victory of her career last December, defeating Curlin’s Approval by three-quarters of a length in the Grade 3 Rampart Stakes at Gulfstream Park, with Genre in third. This year, she has gone winless in three graded stakes at three different tracks to start the season. She was third in the Grade 2 Royal Delta at Gulfstream; second, beaten a length, in the Grade 2 Azeri at Oaklawn; and sixth on a sloppy track in the Grade 1 La Troienne at Churchill Downs.
Local jockey Joe Bravo, who has ridden Eskenformoney in her three Monmouth starts, regains the mount Sunday for trainer Todd Pletcher. Eskenformoney is 3-5 on the track’s morning line.
Kelly Breen has a pair for the Lady’s Secret in the graded-stakes-placed Money’soncharlotte and the stakes-placed Cayman Croc. Money’soncharlotte came back from a layoff of more than four months to win her only start of the year April 8, rolling by 5 1/2 lengths in an optional claimer at Parx.
None of the field’s other three entrants – Pleasant Mine, Gia Alexa, or Bay Rum – has won or placed in a stakes. Pleasant Mine does own the field’s top last-out Beyer Speed Figure, having earned a 77 when second to Line of Best Fit in an optional claimer at Parx. Line of Best Fit went on to win her next race.