Frostmourne highlights solid field for Monmouth Stakes

A beautiful weather forecast, four stakes, and 45 food trucks should satisfy everyone’s hunger for entertainment Saturday afternoon at Monmouth Park.

The 13 races, which begin at 12:50 p.m., include the Grade 2 Monmouth Stakes, Grade 3 Salvator Mile, $75,000 Boiling Springs, and the $60,000 John J. Reilly Handicap for New Jersey-breds.

The Food Truck Festival is one of the most popular promotions of the year at Monmouth and draws a large, family-oriented crowd. To avoid the lines, come hungry and eat early, especially if you want a lobster roll from the Red Hook Lobster Pound, whose line never seems to shrink.

The food trucks will be back at Monmouth on Sunday and Monday.

:: Save 20% on PPs, digital paper subscriptions, and more with DRF's Memorial Day sale!

The $200,000 Monmouth, a 1 1/8-mile turf race, has a field of seven, including three refugees from last Saturday’s off-the-turf Dixie at Pimlico – Frostmourne, Divisidero, and Doctor Mounty.

The field also includes the Chad Brown-trained Projected and Money Multiplier, comeback winner Force the Pass, and longshot Gulfstream Park optional-claiming winner Murad Khan.

Trainer Christophe Clement made the decision to scratch Frostmourne the day before the Dixie and never shipped to Maryland. He was able to put a five-furlong Belmont Park breeze into the two-time graded winner Monday.

“It was just a nice, easy work,” Clement said.

Frostmourne was freshened between his 3- and 4-year-old campaigns and won an optional-claiming race at Gulfstream Park – his first race against older horses – in March. He comes into the Monmouth off an even fifth-place running line in the Grade 1 Maker’s 46 Mile at Keeneland.

The Maker’s 46 was a strong race. Eleven-time graded winner Heart to Heart was allowed to control the tempo and went the opening six furlongs in 1:11.77 before sprinting a final quarter-mile in 22.94 seconds. Everybody chasing him looked like they were running in place.

Heart to Heart is currently at Santa Anita for the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile on Monday.

“I was a little disappointed he was not second or third, but the winner is a very good horse,” Clement said. “When he leaves and makes an easy lead, he is very tough to run down.”

Frostmourne earned a career-best 101 Beyer Speed Figure in the Maker’s 46. He should be close to or on the pace Saturday under jockey Joel Rosario.

Two-time Grade 1 winner Divisidero will be making his 6-year-old debut and first start for trainer Kelly Rubley. Rather than race in the Dixie, Rubley worked him over the Tapeta training track at Fair Hill on Saturday.

There is not much early speed in the Monmouth, and Divisidero does his best running from well back in the pack. It will be up to jockey Jevian Toledo to work out a trip.

Projected kicked off his 6-year-old season with a runner-up effort to Fire Away in the one-mile Danger’s Hour at Aqueduct. Fire Away showed his sharpness at Pimlico by rallying to win the Dixie on the main track.

Force the Pass won the Cliff Hanger Stakes at Monmouth three weeks ago for trainer Alan Goldberg while making his first start in 19 months. He won a stiff stretch-run battle by a nose over local graded winner Irish Strait, proving he still has the desire he used to win the Penn Mile and Belmont Derby back to back in 2015.