Mo' Green gets job done in Top Flight
With 4-5 favorite Isabelle and 5-2 second choice Verve's Tale keeping each other busy on the front end, jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. settled third choice Mo' Green into a perfect stalking position in the Grade 3 Top Flight Invitational at Aqueduct on Sunday. And when Mo' Green came calling three wide nearing the stretch, neither had an answer.
Mo' Green pulled away to win the 1 1/8-mile race for fillies and mares by 3 1/2 lengths. Verve's Tale, who alternated on the lead inside Isabelle, continued bravely to finish second. It was 4 1/4 lengths farther back to Oasis At Midnight who was third as the longest shot in the five-horse field at 35-1. Winter bested a tiring Isabelle by a neck for fourth.
Isabelle and Verve's Tale set fractions of 24.47 seconds, 48.98, and 1:13.60. Mo' Green completed a lap of the Aqueduct main track in 1:51.79. She paid $8.40.
Mo' Green, a 4-year-old daughter of Uncle Mo, is owned by Leonard Green. She was making her first start for trainer John Servis after previously racing for Joe Orseno. Mo' Green is now 4 for 11. She walked off with $120,000 of the $196,000 purse and now has earnings of $259,420. The Top Flight is her first stakes score.
"I was very impressed," Servis said. "I was a little concerned about her in the paddock, she seemed very quiet. Then when she broke so sharp I knew I didn't have to worry."
Servis said Mo' Green's next start could come in the $150,000 Allaire DuPont Distaff, a 1 1/8-mile race for fillies and mares at Pimlico on the May 19 Black-Eyed Susan card.