Highway Star vs. Holiday Disguise in Critical Eye

Monday’s $200,000 Critical Eye Stakes offers an intriguing showdown between multiple stakes winners Highway Star and Holiday Disguise in the one-mile race.

Highway Star, a 5-year-old daughter of Girolamo, is facing New York-breds for the first time since Nov. 13, 2016, when she won a division of the New York Stallion Stakes. Since then, she has won four graded stakes and is coming off a second-place finish to Pacific Wind in the Grade 2 Ruffian here May 6 when she may have moved too soon around the middle of the far turn.

Highway Star is 5 for 7 at Belmont and 4 for 7 at a mile.

Holiday Disguise won the Bouwerie Stakes on this card last year. She won the Grade 3 Distaff at Aqueduct in April before finishing third in the Grade 3 Vagrancy here just two weeks ago.

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“The last race, Irad [Ortiz] had her down inside, she wouldn’t relax down there,” Linda Rice, trainer of Holiday Disguise, said. “He thought it was a tactical mistake on his part.”

Rice said she feels seven furlongs might be better than the mile of this race but “it’s New York-bred company, so we’ll give it a try,” she said.

Verdant Pastures won the Empire Distaff on the front end last October before fading to a well-beaten fifth in an open second-level allowance last December after which she was put away by trainer Charlton Baker.

Verdant Pastures shows a strong work tab for her debut, but she must avoid a potential pace battle with Frost Wise, who was beaten a neck in the Top Flight Invitational on April 15 at Aqueduct.