First Mission looks very tough in Iselin, but will he step up?

First Mission looks like an absolute lead-pipe cinch in the Grade 3, $250,000 Philip H. Iselin Stakes on Saturday at Monmouth Park.

So did the last horse trainer Brad Cox started at Monmouth, and that didn’t end well.

Just a Touch on the Haskell Stakes undercard of July 19 went off at odds of 1-10 in the Monmouth Cup and finished second, beaten a half-length.

The horse who pulled the upset, Surface to Air, and four others try to take down the latest Cox-trained Monmouth favorite in the 1 1/16-mile Iselin. On paper, they don’t have a chance. But Cox-trained standouts at Monmouth often have failed to live up to their short prices.

In the 2024 Monmouth Cup, Highland Falls finished second, beaten more than five lengths as the 7-10 favorite. On the same card, Idiomatic, 1-10 in the Molly Pitcher, eked out a head victory. Two more Cox charges, Youalmosthadme at 7-10 and Eyeing Clover at 3-5, also went down to defeat during the 2024 season.

Over the last five years, 11 of Cox’s 23 Monmouth dirt starters have gone off at even money or less. Only four have won, posting a crippling 95-cent return on investment.

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Surface to Air, claimed out of a $30,000 maiden in April 2024 by Premier Racing, clearly hit a career peak in the Monmouth Cup, where jockey Samuel Marin took the fight to Just a Touch around the far turn and held him safe after establishing a midstretch lead.

Surface to Air is neither the fastest horse on recent Beyer Speed Figures nor the most accomplished among First Mission’s rivals. Rail-drawn Offaly Cool comes off a 99 Beyer earned in a July 22 Parx Racing allowance romp, and he’s come close to that number before. Seven-year-old Repo Rocks, an 11-time winner, has banked more than $1.2 million, though of late he’s not nearly fast enough to threaten the heavy favorite.

Much to the disappointment of his connections, Cox and breeder Godolphin, First Mission, despite six Beyers over 100, never has won a Grade 1. That would have seemed unlikely the week of the 2023 Preakness Stakes, where First Mission, physically mature beyond his age, coming off a smart score in the Lexington Stakes, looked like the horse to beat. Instead, an infirmity led to a late-week scratch.

First Mission didn’t return until that fall, and in his Grade 1 debut in June 2024, he checked in a mild fourth as the odds-on choice in the Stephen Foster. First Mission exits the same race, where he set pace and held creditably for third in the June 28 Foster, beaten only by the two leading members of the older-male dirt-route division, Mindframe and Sierra Leone.

First Mission and Florent Geroux break from the outside post, a great draw for a horse with plenty of positional pace. The horse carries a manageable 124 pounds. First Mission can’t lose – unless he does.

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