Penalty returns as gelding in Elusive Quality Stakes
ELMONT, N.Y. – At times, Penalty has run like a stakes horse. Those performances just didn’t come in the three stakes in which he’s run.
Saturday, a newly gelded 7-year-old Penalty will once again attempt to achieve his first stakes victory when he returns from a near eight-month layoff in the $100,000 Elusive Quality Stakes at Belmont Park. The Elusive Quality, scheduled for seven furlongs on the Widener turf course, drew a competitive field of 11 and will go as race 9 on a 10-race card that begins at 1:20 p.m.
Penalty, a son of Blame trained by Bill Mott, is only 4 for 18 in his career. His best race came last May going seven furlongs at Belmont when he won a third-level allowance/optional claimer by three-quarters of a length over stablemate Chewing Gum. In two subsequent stakes tries, he finished sixth in the Grade 3 Poker here and fifth in the TVG Stakes at Kentucky Downs.
Mott said Penalty came out of the TVG “jammed up.” Penalty got turned out for 90 days and was gelded during the layoff.
“He’s a lot easier to be around,” Mott said. “He was a little hard-headed before. Hopefully, he’ll have his mind on business.”
Penalty will break from the rail under Jose Ortiz.
Mott, who trained the multiple graded stakes winner Elusive Quality and who has won this race twice, also will send out American Monarch in Saturday’s race. American Monarch, a son of American Pharaoh, won his maiden on turf in the summer of 2020 but has made his last five starts on dirt, winning once and finishing second three times.
“We want to run him in a stakes race,” Mott said. “I don’t know that he wants to go beyond seven-eighths. We’ll give him one more try on the turf.”
Trainer Chad Brown has won the Elusive Quality twice and came within a head of a third last year with Value Proposition, who was beaten a head by Mott’s Casa Creed. Value Proposition is back on Saturday. He has three wins over the Belmont course, including a victory in last fall’s Oyster Bay Stakes, also a seven-furlong race, for which he earned a career-best 102 Beyer Speed Figure.
If he can transfer his dirt form to the turf, Milton the Monster could be intriguing at a price in the Elusive Quality. Milton the Monster is a son of Jack Milton, a Grade 1 stakes winner on turf. Milton the Monster has shown an affinity to handle off dirt tracks and is coming off a six-length victory on dirt three weeks ago at Laurel Park.
Frankie Pennington is in from Parx Racing to ride for trainer John Servis.
The New York-bred Scuttlebuzz ended his 4-year-old season with a pair of open-company allowance wins going six furlongs at Aqueduct last fall. This is his stakes debut. The 2019 Elusive Quality was won by the New York-bred Therapist.
Big Package, another New York-bred in the field, rallied from 10th to win allowance race going seven furlongs here last November. He then couldn’t overcome a slow start when finishing sixth in the Aqueduct Turf Sprint three weeks later. John Velazquez rides for David Donk.
Snapper Sinclair, who beat Penalty in the TVG Stakes, Proven Strategies, and Majestic Dunhill complete the field.