Highgrove, Movie Night duke it out in stakes stepping-stone
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The connections of the 3-year-old fillies Highgrove and Movie Night believe they have a horses of stakes quality on their hands, but at least one camp will come out of the eighth race Wednesday at Churchill Downs with a filly still first-level allowance-eligible.
Highgrove, Movie Night, and five other sophomore fillies went into an entry-level allowance carded for 6 1/2 furlongs on dirt and open to $125,000 claimers. The presence of two flashy last-out winners lends this race more panache than Wednesday’s actual feature, a second-level turf mile allowance that immediately follows and closes the card.
Highgrove has started once, leading all the way May 14 at Aqueduct in a 6 1/2-furlong maiden sprint. The second-place horse, beaten 2 1/2 lengths, gathered momentum just before the finish and galloped out well in front. That filly, Competitive Market, came right back with her own stylish maiden score.
“She acted in the morning like she was going to do what she did first time,” said Brad Cox, Highgrove’s trainer. “She’s a fast filly. I don’t know how far she wants to go, but she’s always been a nice-training filly, and we’re hoping this is a stepping-stone to a stakes race.”
TimeformUS, interestingly, codes Highgrove’s race as slow during the early and middle stages and fast late. Perhaps she won’t be as far in front of Movie Night as one might assume just looking at the bare past performances.
Movie Night has not shown obvious early speed, and in fact, was not showing too much of anything going down the backstretch in her debut at Keeneland this April with John Velazquez riding. Trainer Will Walden described her as “lost out there,” and said Movie Night had, at times, looked the same way during morning work.
“Johnny got her down to the rail, and she started passing horses left and right,” Walden said.
Movie Night passed six foes but could not get to front-running winner Where Luck Lives. No shame there. Where Luck Lives won a May 28 first-level allowance sprint at Churchill by 5 1/4 lengths.
Second time out, Movie Night kept her head in the game. She stalked intently from midpack May 16 at Churchill, moving up with purpose past the three-furlong marker, and taking command of the contest at the stretch call, going on to win by more eight lengths over Epic Proud Mary, an easy maiden sprint winner June 16 at Churchill.
Video of Movie Night’s workout on May 30 shows a filly who will prove at least as good on a fast track as she was over sloppy surfaces in her first two starts – and one who might run farther than 6 1/2 furlongs.
“She does work like a good horse, and we’ve had discussions about stretching her out. She’s a pretty leggy filly, not super-robust,” Walden said.
Stretching out, staying at one turn, aiming for stakes – the first task at hand is beating Highgrove on Wednesday at Churchill.
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