Lockdown, Vexatious major players in Mother Goose
The Mother Goose at Belmont Park on Saturday is a brainteaser of a race.
Four of the seven fillies come out of a wet-track start. Trainer Todd Pletcher’s three entrants are difficult to separate. And the high Beyer Speed Figure in the field belongs to the winner of a first-level optional-claiming race.
The $250,000 Mother Goose, a 1 1/16-mile race for 3-year-old fillies, has been knocked down to a Grade 2 this year and had its purse trimmed by $50,000. It headlines a 10-race card that also includes the $100,000 Perfect Sting, a one-mile stakes for fillies and mares.
Lockdown, trained by Bill Mott, and Vexatious, based in California with Neil Drysdale, will be making their first start since finishing third and fourth in the Kentucky Oaks over a sloppy track. They both had reasonably clean trips while rallying from 10 or 12 lengths back.
Lockdown was along the inside for almost the entire race and had to work through a few tight spots. Vexatious raced wide and gave up ground. They finished side by side, with Lockdown beaten 2 1/4 lengths and Vexatious a half-length farther back.
The Oaks had a sizzling pace, and the top four finishers all came from far back after the leaders packed it in.
The Oaks was the fourth race for Vexatious in eight weeks. She had finished third in her previous three races – a Santa Anita optional claimer, the Grade 2 Fair Grounds Oaks, and the Grade 3 Fantasy at Oaklawn.
Although her running lines give the impression that she ran evenly in those races, her Fantasy effort was impressive. She was hip-checked entering the stretch and then raced greenly while drifting inward before altering course outward late.
“We asked her to do a lot in a short period of time to get her to the Oaks, and then the track came up wet,” Drysdale said.
Vexatious has been freshened for eight weeks and is a dangerous player in the Mother Goose. The same can be said for Lockdown.
Pletcher has won the Mother Goose in three of the last seven years and five times overall, including last year with Off the Tracks. He has entered Lights of Medina and Moana, the second- and fifth-place finishers from the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan at Pimlico, and My Miss Tapit, who defeated eventual Black-Eyed Susan winner Actress in a restricted stakes at Gulfstream Park in April.
The Black-Eyed Susan was run over a sloppy and deep racing surface. Much like the Oaks, the top four finishers all came from the back of the pack.
Moana, at 7-2, held on better than any of the other horses who were in early contention and finished fifth. Lights of Medina, at 5-1, rallied from more than 15 lengths off the pace to be beaten a nose.
“Moana ran okay in the Black-Eyed Susan, but I don’t think she loved the track,” Pletcher said. “It looked like Lights of Medina did love it.”
Pletcher’s third entrant, My Miss Tapit, is 2 for 2. She won a Gulfstream maiden race in March, then outfinished Actress to win the $75,000 Game Face by 1 1/2 lengths. The Mother Goose will be her first start in 10 weeks and her first attempt beyond seven furlongs.
Unchained Melody, trained by Brian Lynch, earned the highest Beyer in the field, a 90, when she won a first-level optional-claiming race going 1 1/16 miles at Belmont on June 1. In her career debut at Gulfstream in March, she defeated Actress, who would go on to win the Black-Eyed Susan.
On Leave tops Perfect Sting
The Perfect Sting’s field of eight is topped by On Leave and Conquest Babayaga.
On Leave began her 4-year-old season on Preakness Day at Pimlico for Shug McGaughey, finishing second in the Grade 3 Gallorette over 1 1/16 miles on “good” turf. She won four straight races last year at age 3, including the Grade 2 Sands Point, before concluding her season with a fourth-place finish in the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland.
On Leave, a homebred for Stuart Janney III, is by War Front and from a terrific female family. She is a half-sister to the graded-stakes winners Ironicus, Norumbega, Quiet Harbor, and Hunting.
Conquest Babayaga is 3 for 3 since being purchased for $210,000 at the Conquest Stables dispersal at Keeneland last fall. Trained by Chad Brown, she won under second- and third-level allowance conditions before closing from far back to take the Grade 3 Intercontinental at seven furlongs June 8.
Conquest Babayaga drew post 8 and risks getting fanned wide to the backstretch out of the Widener turf-course chute.
Off Limits, also trained by Brown, and Ultimate Holiday, trained by Michelle Nevin, each enter off a Belmont Park allowance win.