Highly Motivated finds his form in Monmouth Cup

OCEANPORT, New Jersey – Highly Motivated came within a neck of beating subsequent 3-year-old champion Essential Quality in the Blue Grass Stakes on April 3, 2021, and he paid the price. Highly Motivated finished 10th in the Kentucky Derby a month later but didn’t start again until April 2022.

On Saturday at Monmouth Park, finally back to himself, the colt notched his first graded-stakes win, beating his Chad Brown-trained stablemate Pipeline by 1 3/4 lengths in the Grade 3, $400,000 Monmouth Cup.

“The Blue Grass was a really hard race on him,” Brown said. “He’s just now rounding back into form.”

Brown brought Highly Motivated back from a long layoff in two allowance races before picking out a stakes spot here – the right one, as it turned out. Racing over a lightning-fast dirt surface, Highly Motivated clocked 1:46.52 for 1 1/8 miles, breaking Spend a Buck’s 48-year-old track record of 1:46.80 and getting a Beyer Speed Figure of 96.

Pipeline clearly was second-best, finishing 2 1/4 lengths in front of Informative, who was followed by pacesetting Antigravity, Rough Sea, King of Dreams, and Top Gun.

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Highly Motivated ($3.60), a homebred colt owned by Seth Klarman’s Klaravich Stable, is by Into Mischief out of Strong Incentive, by Warrior’s Reward.

Highly Motivated was highly regarded enough off that Blue Grass second that he was just 10-1 in the Derby, where he stalked the pace and faded through the stretch – and then off the racing scene entirely. Jockey Flavien Prat on Saturday gave Highly Motivated another stalking trip, following Pipeline, who was asked early to make the lead, failed to get it, and raced outside and behind Antigravity. The Monmouth track had been favoring front-runners Saturday, the half-mile split of 47.47 wasn’t especially fast, and Prat didn’t want to be too patient.

“It looked like [Pipeline] was traveling really well on the lead and I wanted to stay close to him,” Prat said.

Prat asked Highly Motivated to improve as the field bent into the far turn and got a good response from his mount, edging closer to Pipeline, who had put away Antigravity, approaching the quarter pole. At the head of the stretch, Highly Motivated, already under a drive, overhauled Pipeline, drawing steadily away in a track-record performance very much aided by course conditions.

“He needs to be a bit more forwardly placed and I saw it today,” Brown said. “He broke good and was happy to rate, but always in hand and ready to go. That’s the Highly Motivated I'm used to, and the horse he was early on the Derby trail.”

And the horse who became a graded-stakes winner Saturday.