Highestdistinction has chance for Oceanport repeat

Highestdistinction enters Friday’s $100,000 Oceanport Stakes on a four-race winning streak – and a 10-month layoff.

The 7-year-old gelding raised his game several notches during 2023 after Lindsay Schultz began training him for Willow Lane Stable. Highestdistinction’s win skein began in a starter-allowance race at Delaware Park 13 months ago, after which he won Oceanport by 1 1/2 lengths, followed by victories in the Grade 2 Baltimore-Washington International Turf Cup and in a rich Keeneland allowance race.

“He had four good races, and we just thought we’d give him the winter off,” Schultz said Wednesday. “It ended being a little longer than we wanted.”

The Oceanport comes later this summer than intended. The 1 1/16-mile grass race failed to fill when originally scheduled for Aug. 11 but made it onto Friday’s card with seven entrants, Highestdistinction drawn outside six others. The field includes the trio of There Are No Words, He’spuregold, and Big Everest, who filled out the three finishing positions behind Highestdistinction in last year’s Oceanport, along with the Chad Brown-trained Kubrick, the Neil Drysdale-trained St Anthony, and California Frolic.

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Kubrick is an interesting 4-year-old, albeit one who might be overbet Friday since Brown trains him for owner Peter Brant, connections that draw public money like night moths to a bright-burning barn lamp. A Group 3 winner in France during his 2-year-old season, Kubrick is a brother to the multiple Grade 1-winning turf miler Raging Bull, trained by Brown for Brant. Beaten less than four lengths in the French 2000 Guineas two Mays ago, Kubrick didn’t start after that race until this past spring, when he sharply won a Tampa Bay Downs allowance. Kubrick got thrown to the wolves next out, finishing sixth in the Grade 1 Maker’s Mark Mile, and most recently came home a tame sixth June 8 in the Poker Stakes. Kubrick has since worked steadily at Saratoga and looks like a colt who could hit a new peak.

St Anthony hasn’t started since an eighth-place finish last November in the Artie Schiller at Aqueduct. His presence at Monmouth, where he shipped from Drysdale’s base in California for local workout Aug. 13, would seem strange – but for the fact St Anthony came to Monmouth last summer to capture a turf allowance and the $106,000 Red Bank.

Big Everest, the Artie Schiller winner, makes his first Monmouth start this season but won the $102,000 Cliff Hanger over the course during last year’s meeting. Always a pace threat, Big Everest led in the 2023 Oceanport but faded to finish fourth, beaten not only by Highestdistinction but by the pair of New Jersey-breds, He’spuregold and There Are No Words. There Are No Words, drawn on the rail, is the one horse who could make Big Everest work on the lead.

As for Highestdistinction, he was entered in a Colonial Downs allowance that never was run owing to a mid-card cancellation, but Schultz thinks the gelding can show last summer’s form.

“He loves to train. We just gave him an extended layoff, let him gallop around the Kentucky fields. He’s been steadily working at Monmouth,” she said.

Highestdistinction won his Oceanport at 10-1. His price will be shorter Friday, but a repeat lies within range.

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