Riding Pretty takes on boys in Hesse on statebred card
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The best New Jersey-bred of recent vintage, and surely one of the best ever, Book’em Danno was scheduled to race Saturday in the Grade 1 Forego at Saratoga. A significant percentage of the New Jersey-breds of recent vintage are scheduled to race Sunday at Monmouth Park, where all 12 races are restricted to horses bred in the Garden State.
There were 112 horses entered in the dozen contests, a good number considering that Jockey Club statistics recorded a grand total of 43 mares bred in New Jersey during the 2024 breeding season. Three of the heats – race 5, the Charles Hesse Handicap; race 8, the New Jersey Breeders’ Handicap; and race 10, the Eleven North Handicap – offer restricted six-figure stakes opportunities. The Eleven North and the New Jersey Breeders’, both sprints, are worth $100,000, while the Hesse, a route, offers a $125,000 purse.
The 5-year-old mare Riding Pretty a year ago won the Eleven North, restricted to older fillies and mares, at odds of 1-2. But this year, owner-breeder Holly Crest Farm and trainer Eddie Owens match the 5-year-old against males in the Hesse, run at 1 1/16 miles. While she tallied a comfortable victory in the 2024 Eleven North, Riding Pretty cut back from routes to win that sprint and more naturally suits the Hesse’s two-turn configuration. She exits a turf route win over New Jersey-bred female stakes foes and on Sunday totes a manageable 118 pounds.
Her rivals, all males, include steep class-dropper Wildncrazynight, a 3-year-old who last saw action July 19 in the Grade 1 Haskell Stakes – though “action” might be too strong a word, as Wildncrazynight crossed the wire more than 55 lengths behind the winner, Journalism. In his previous start, Wildncrazynight beat four in the Pegasus Stakes but took a seven-length loss to Bracket Buster, who was to run in the Travers Stakes on Saturday at Saratoga. Nonetheless, a repeat of that performance puts Wildncrazynight, another carrying 118, in the Hesse hunt.
Owens and Holly Crest have runners in five other races Sunday, including the New Jersey Breeders’, a six-furlong dash in which they run 5-year-old Great Navigator and 6-year-old Speaking.
Speaking has won 7 of 10 starts in New Jersey-bred competition, including the New Jersey Breeders’ in 2022 and 2023. Speaking didn’t start in this race a year ago and runs for the first time since beating similar competition May 18.
Despite his dominant record in the division and likely odds-on favoritism, Speaking carries just 123, giving all of one pound to Great Navigator and two to No Cents. It’ll take more weight than that to get him beat.
Mia’s Crusade, carrying 123, heads the Eleven North, a race she won in 2023 and in which she finished second last year. Paco Lopez, hitting at a remarkable 33 percent clip this Monmouth meet (72-221) rides Mia’s Crusade for just the second time in her 23-race career. Lopez and the mare got acquainted in her most recent start, the Smart N Classy on June 1, a one-mile race in this division that Mia’s Crusade won in a romp.
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