La Troienne: All systems go for Shedaresthedevil in second start of the year
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Monomoy Girl still resides in the barn, two-time champion, two-time Breeders’ Cup Distaff winner, the first horse that really put trainer Brad Cox’s name in lights. Monomoy Girl is 6 now. She was giving weight when Letruska narrowly beat her earlier this month in the Apple Blossom at Oaklawn. No one is writing her off. Yet one gets the sense that by the end of 2021, Cox might have an even stronger force in the older filly and mare dirt-route division.
Shedaresthedevil had posted only four published workouts when she returned March 13 in the Azeri Stakes at Oaklawn for her first start in four months. She set a solid pace and still managed to hold off Letruska for a narrow victory, a very encouraging start to a 4-year-old campaign that moves on to the Grade 1, $500,000 La Troienne Stakes over 1 1/16 miles on Friday at Churchill.
Shedaresthedevil was good last out at Oaklawn but should be even better this time at Churchill. Cox believes the ample time between starts will allow her to move forward in her second 2020 race, and Shedaresthedevil has won all three of her Churchill races, most recently upsetting 2020’s champion 3-year-old filly Swiss Skydiver in the Kentucky Oaks.
“Her works have been great, and she loves this track,” Cox said Tuesday morning.
Owned by Qatar Racing and Flurry Racing Stables, Shedaresthedevil, a Daredevil filly, breaks from post 2 under Florent Geroux, who must decide whether to go forward or take a little hold and try for a pressing or stalking trip. Shedaresthedevil twice has won on the lead but won the Honeybee last year at Oaklawn from well off the pace and captured the Indiana Oaks with an outside-pressing trip. She’s 8-5 on the track’s morning line and carries 123 pounds, giving five pounds to five of her rivals and three to Sanenus.
Sanenus, a Chilean import trained by Michael McCarthy, finished second and third here last year in a pair of one-turn miles but might be better suited for two-turn racing. Visually impressive making short work of the Grade 3 La Canada, a two-turn Santa Anita route in January, Sanenus had to be scratched from the Grade 1 Beholder Mile because of a relatively minor ailment, soon resolved. Instead, McCarthy sent her to Keeneland for the Grade 1 Madison, a salty seven-furlong race in which Sanenus finished a creditable fourth, enduring a claustrophobic trip after breaking from the rail.
“She’s trained well here,” McCarthy said. “We’d like a nice, stalking trip; see her get into a rhythm.”
While Dunbar Road makes her first start since a moderately troubled third-place finish behind Monomoy Girl and Valiance in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, trainer Chad Brown said the 5-year-old mare “has been ready to run for a month.” Brown didn’t find a suitable prep race and decided to send Dunbar Road, a Grade 1 winner as a 3-year-old of 2019, straight into the La Troienne.
“I just didn’t want to run her down south,” said Brown, who was breezing Dunbar Road at Payson Park in Florida. “I think she’s ready for this, and I think she’s going to have a very good year.”
Envoutante chased Shedaresthedevil in the Azeri, appeared to tire slightly in the late stages, and finished fourth while making her first start in 3 1/2 months. She returns to the site of her best race, a six-length blowout in the Grade 2 Falls City last November. Envoutante went to the front that day and finished off her race with an 11.96-second final furlong, but a more complicated trip could be in order Friday from her rail draw, the third straight start in which Envoutante has drawn post 1.
Paris Lights won a maiden race and a first-level allowance on the Churchill dirt last spring before capturing a soft renewal of the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks by a neck. Back from a layoff of more than seven months, she won the Grade 3 Distaff Handicap at Aqueduct on April 2 and will benefit from stretching out to 1 1/16 miles off her seven-furlong comeback, trainer Bill Mott said.
Multiple graded stakes winner Finite’s 2020 form suggested she prefers longer one-turn races to true two-turn routes, but she was a commendable third, setting the pace in the slop, behind Monomoy Girl in the Feb. 28 Bayakoa, her only start this year.
Florida shipper Bajan Girl never has won a stakes race of any sort and looks at most like a pace factor.
The La Troienne is a no-Lasix race: Envoutante, Shedaresthedevil, Dunbar Road, and Finite all make their first start without the anti-bleeder medication.