New Money Honey may make Alabama Stakes her dirt debut

SARATOGA S PRINGS, N.Y. - New Money Honey is a multiple Grade 1 winner on turf, but the 3-year-old filly may be heading to the dirt for her next start.

New Money Honey worked a half-mile in 48.64 seconds over the Saratoga main track Saturday morning in what could be a first step toward a start in the Grade 1, $600,000 Alabama Stakes here Aug. 19. Under Javier Castellano, New Money Honey worked outside of the 3-year-old maiden filly Devine Union. The two went their first quarter in 23.93 seconds and the second quarter in 24.71 going very easily.

“Her first work over this main track in about a year, I thought it went really well,” trainer Chad Brown said. “The filly worked good and galloped-out strong. So far, I like what I see. I’ll do a more serious piece of work next week, answer some more questions.”

New Money Honey, a daughter of Medaglia d’Oro, has run six times, winning four races including the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf and Belmont Oaks Invitational. She has never raced on dirt, but Brown said he had always liked her on the dirt. He said New Money Honey began her career on turf because he wanted to run her a distance of ground right away.

“She’s a horse that really needed to go two turns right off the bat,” Brown said. “Her pedigree is solid enough on dirt as well. We’ve never not liked her on the dirt, it’s just that we started her out on the turf because of the distance of the races. She ran well right away so there was no real reason to change anything.”
Brown said the 1 1/4-mile distance of the Alabama is attractive.

“We’ve always thought this filly could run long on the dirt,” Brown said.

If New Money Honey does run in the Alabama, one filly she will face is Holy Helena, winner of the Queen's Plate for trainer Jimmy Jerkens. Holy Helena on Saturday worked five furlongs in 1:01.98 over the Oklahoma training track. She worked outside of Feeling Bossy going in splits of 13.16 seconds, 25.58, 37.14. Holy Helena galloped out six furlongs in 1:16.37.

Though her last two wins came over the synthetic surface at Woodbine, Holy Helena did win a maiden race on the dirt at Belmont in May.

“She beat a bad bunch of maidens so it’s hard to gauge,” trainer Jimmy Jerkens said about trying a Grade 1 on the dirt. “Just try to get her used to it as much as we can. Whether she’s effective on it or not you don’t know.”