La Moneda up in final jumps for Yaddo score

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – La Moneda, who seems to get better with every start, made her stakes debut a winning one while posting her fourth straight victory in the process after running down pacesetter Lady Joan in the closing yards to register a neck decision in Friday’s $150,000 Yaddo at Saratoga.

La Moneda, a New York-bred daughter of Freud owned by her breeder Patricia Moseley and trained by Tom Morley, began her current win streak against statebreds on June 9 at Belmont Park. She then extended the skein with open company, registering a pair of well graded allowance wins that included a 1 3/4-length victory going a mile here earlier in the meet.

With La Moneda's regular rider Javier Castellano opting to keep his seat on the Chad Brown-trained even-money favorite Fifty Five, Junior Alvarado teamed up with La Moneda for the second time in her last three starts and put up a perfectly judged ride on the stretch-running filly. La Moneda bided her time about eight lengths off the pace of Lady Joan, and commenced her bid while four wide into the stretch before ultimately wearing down the leader in the final 40 yards of the 1 1/16-mile race.

Lady Joan, a winner of two of her last three starts including an optional claiming and allowance race here just two weeks earlier, cut out a lively pace, dug in gamely, but could not last. She was just able to fend off Fifty Five’s belated bid to be second-best.

La Moneda completed the distance in 1:40.49 over a firm turf and paid $7.60 as the second choice in the field of eight older New York red fillies and mares.

La Moneda began her career with Brendan Walsh, who’ll send out Proctor’s Ledge for Moseley here Saturday in the Grade 2 Ballston Spa.

“She’s been lovely to train and I have to give all the credit to Trish [Moseley] for giving her all the time in the world to start as a 4-year-old for the first time,” said Morley. “And a huge amount of kudos to Brendan Walsh, who at the end of the day did all the hard work with this filly, and if he had a year-round division in New York, she’d be trained by him as well.”

Morley said both he and Walsh had high hopes for La Moneda right from the start.

“When she debuted here last year with Brendan, he said 'I think she can win a graded stakes in New York,'” Morley recalled. “We took our time, she just keeps getting better and better, and I do think she is good enough to win a graded stakes. I was afraid the track was favoring speed today, and I thought that could help with Fifty Five sitting behind us, but I had to tell you the whole way down the lane I was afraid about catching the one in front of us [Lady Joan]. Junior put up a super ride. It was tremendous.”

La Moneda’s victory came less than two weeks after Morley won the Grade 1 Secretariat at Arlington Park with Carrick.

“These good ones don’t come around too often and you really have to appreciate them when they do,” said Morley. “This was huge. It's Saratoga. It’s a stakes win. They don’t come bigger than that.”

Trainer Phil Serpe was delighted with the performance of his filly Lady Joan even in defeat.

“She runs better with every race, it’s amazing,” said Serpe. “I think when she gets in a dog fight she’s tough, so I thought she might hold on. She ran great, though, and we’re happy.”