Forest Heir victorious in Crank It Up Stakes

OCEANPORT, N.J. - Forest Heir, a 7-2 shot trained by Ben Perkins Jr. and ridden by Joe Bravo, benefitted from a hot pace to win Sunday's $50,000 Crank It Up Stakes for 3-year-olds at Monmouth Park.

Forest Heir ($9.80), a 3-year-old son of Forest Wildcat owned by New Farm, sat off fractions of 21.98 and 45.08 seconds contested by Unreal Party and Dixie Hope before taking command with a three-wide move to the front.

He covered the five furlongs in 57.47 seconds.

The exacta with the second choice Unreal Party, who hung on for second 1 3/4 lengths back, paid $34. The $1.40-1 favorite American Century, who dropped back on the backstretch, made a late rush for show, 1/2 lengths behind Unreal Party. The win was Bravo's third of the day.

The race was slated for the turf, but moved to the main track due to a soaked turf course. The switch resulted in a field of 10 being cut to eight.

Forest Heir will now be pointed to the Jersey Shore Breeders' Cup, July 4.

"He had been training really well here and it didn't bother us a bit that the race was taken off the turf," Perkins Jr. said.

* Rize, who won last year's Grade 2 Iselin at Monmouth, showed his class in Sunday's eighth race, a $50,000 money allowance at one mile, racing wire-to-wire to cruise to an easy 2 1/2-length win over Grady. Sea of Tranquility ran third.

Rize ($4.00) cleared the field from post 9 with Eibar Coa aboard, and settled into slow fractions. In the stretch run, Coa used his whip twice, cruising across the wire in 1:35.57 as the even-money favorite. Rize, a 5-year-old trained by Norman Pointer, earned $30,000 for Runnin Horse Farms.

He has shown signs of rounding into last summer's form, as Sunday's victory followed a placing in the Grade 3 Schaefer Handicap at Pimlico May 19.