Gimme a Nother ends layoff with Eatontown win; Program Trading prevails in Monmouth
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Take the results with a grain of salt, especially in the Monmouth Stakes, but the 6-year-old mare Gimme a Nother and the 6-year-old ridgling Program Trading each scored sharp stakes victories Saturday at Monmouth Park.
Gimme a Nother beat the better field and won by a wider margin, 3 3/4 lengths, capturing the Grade 3, $150,000 Eatontown Stakes.
Program Trading got home by two lengths as the 3-10 favorite in the $125,000 Monmouth Stakes.
Gimme a Nother, who paid $4.40 as the second choice, was racing for the first time since September and won her second straight start after losing her first four North American races, three of those in encouraging fashion. In her native South Africa, Gimme a Nother proved literally unbeatable, going 7-7, no rival coming closer than 1 1/2 lengths of defeating her.
Maybe a season’s worth of American racing and another eight months to adapt to life in the Northern Hemisphere pushed Gimme a Nother closer to her previous stardom – even with a great trip, she impressed Saturday.
With Jorge Ruiz riding, Gimme a Nother stalked from second as impossible longshot Creative Stuff set a slow pace, 50.42 for her opening half. Ruiz did not mess around. He launched an early attack, taking command of the race partway around the far turn, and Gimme a Nother not only had no trouble staving off the rally of even-money favorite Whiskey Decision, she drew strongly clear from the stretch call to the wire. Racing over 1 1/16 miles, the shortest distance she’s tried since joining trainer Graham Motion for her 2025 season, Gimme a Nother blistered her final half-furlong in 5.64 and clocked 1:42.90 over a firm course – truly a slow-early, fast-late race shape.
Whiskey Decision, two-length winner of this race a year ago, finished second by a half-length over her Chad Brown-trained stablemate Grayosh. Motion trains Gimme a Nother, a daughter of Gimmethergreenlight and the Tiger Ridge mare Nother Russia, for Newstead Stables.
Program Trading, trained by Brown for Klaravich Stable, broke an eight-race, 25-month losing streak while overwhelming five overmatched opponents in the 1 1/8-mile Monmouth. With Flavien Prat riding, his mount racing without blinkers following a one-start experiment with that equipment, Program Trading stalked the pace from third while racing in the clear. Prat asked for run in upper stretch and Program Trading gave plenty, clipping to the lead with a 22.85-second fourth quarter-mile and finishing the job with an 11.40 final furlong.
Nebras, an English import making his debut for Brown, came from last and finished even faster than Program Trading to nab second by a half-length over Sand Pipes, who’d been sent up to take the lead on the backstretch after Naptown tried to back down the early pace, finished a non-threatening third.
Program Trading ($2.60) got his nine furlongs over a firm course in 1:49.25, the final time tamped down by a slow early and middle pace. Bred in Great Britain, Program Trading is by Lope de Vega out of Dreamlike, by Oasis Dream.
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