Miss Mo Mentum making it look easy for Casse

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Miss Mo Mentum’s super-impressive victory in the opening race on Saturday’s Clasico Internacional program might have been at least temporarily forgotten by the time Jala Jala crossed the finish line first in front of a packed and enthusiastic house in the main event, the Clasico del Caribe, six hours later.

But few have witnessed any horse win a race, let alone a stakes, any easier than Miss Mo Mentum did when cruising to the Gulfstream finish line, under wraps, 8 3/4 lengths in front of her nearest rival, to win the $75,000 Hut Hut.

Miss Mo Momentum is among a handful of promising 2-year-old fillies trainer Mark Casse has in his barn, four of whom, including Miss Momentum, are owned all or in part by Gary Barber. The group also includes Wonder Gadot, recent winner of the Grade 2 Demoiselle at Aqueduct; Grade 1 winner Heavenly Love; Road to Victory and Win the War.

“Win the War is kind of my secret weapon,” Casse said. “She’s 2 for 2 and won her last start by more than 11 lengths with a 93 Beyer. She’s owned by Gary and Mr. [John] Oxley.”

The Hut Hut was the second easy win in a row for Miss Mo Mentum, who captured a one-mile entry-level allowance race, switched from the turf to the dirt, by 3 3/4 lengths at Churchill Downs three weeks earlier.

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“When she won the race at Churchill she did it the same way, circling the field and under wraps,” Casse said. “I told Gary after she broke her maiden on the turf [in September] that I thought she could win the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf. Then she ran so poorly when I took her to Keeneland [in the Jessamine], although I’ve had that happen to me over that turf course with other good horses in the past. I told Gary two things, don’t ever count a horse out because of one bad race on a particular surface, and that it’s tough to get any read, in my opinion, on races run on the main track at Saratoga.”

Casse and Barber are in the process of sorting out where and when all their promising young fillies will run this winter, although Casse did say he was leaning toward turning Miss Mo Mentum back to seven furlongs to make her 3-year-old debut Feb. 2 at Gulfstream in the Forward Gal.

Casse will be active in stakes races here Saturday with a couple of newly acquired fillies – Miss Hollywood and Alpine Sky. Miss Hollywood, a stakes winner here during summer 2016, will run in the six-furlong Sugar Swirl, while Alpine Sky, an impressive allowance winner locally Sept. 1, will go a mile in the Rampart, both Grade 3 races.

Miss Hollywood and Alpine Sky are both in training with Casse at his farm in Ocala, which he now calls “his hub” and from where he’ll be conditioning and then shipping out the majority of his stakes runners to compete this coming winter.