Scalable rallies, defeats Gun Song in Monmouth Oaks

Scalable, with help from a lovely ride by Paco Lopez, rallied through the homestretch to beat favored Gun Song in the Grade 3, $250,000 Monmouth Oaks at Monmouth Park on Saturday.

Scalable drew abreast Gun Song at about the eighth pole and edged clear to post a three-quarters-length victory in this 1 1/16-mile dirt race for 3-year-old fillies. Gun Song, who battled hard under Julien Leparoux, had 1 3/4 lengths on Little Jamie, who also ran well in finishing third.

Trained by Todd Pletcher for Repole Stable, Scalable showed enough early ability that connections, following a fifth-place debut finish last summer at Saratoga, sent her to California, where Scalable ran second in the Grade 2 Chandelier. A solid fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, Scalable finally cleared the maiden ranks making her 3-year-old bow in January at Gulfstream, after which her development appeared to stagnate.

Following two moderate stakes showings, Pletcher tried Scalable on turf, to no avail, but Scalable perked back up facing first-level allowance foes, winning by a head on June 29 at Churchill Downs. Scalable shortly thereafter shipped to Monmouth to prepare for the local Oaks, and Pletcher hit the target aiming for this midsummer goal.

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Breaking from post 1, Scalable stalked the pace about two paths off the fence as Yes to Champagne and Little Jamie volleyed for the lead through a moderate half-mile in 48.72 seconds. Leparoux kept Gun Song wide and in the clear, going up to tackle the leaders around the far turn. Yes to Champagne dropped away and at the five-sixteenths marker the race was on between Gun Song and Little Jamie. But not for long.

Lopez let Gun Song go around him at the three-eighths pole, then spun Scalable outside for her run, and past the quarter pole Scalable came hard at the leaders. Scalable briefly tried to duck in from a right-handed stick, but Lopez quickly straightened her out and sent the filly on to her first stakes victory.

Scalable paid $8.60 as the third choice (5-2 second-choice Chilled was a dull sixth) and was timed in 1:44.71 over a fast track.

Scalable is by Speightstown out of Passion Flower, by Tapit, and was bred by Stonestreet Thoroughbreds.

Given stakes chances before she’d ever won a race, Scalable finally took one down Saturday at Monmouth.

*** Friday at Monmouth, Reclusive, the longest shot in the race, closed from last of seven to win the $100,000 Regret by two lengths. Piloting the mare to a $71 win payoff was apprentice jockey Chris Elliott, son of jockey Stewart Elliott, who won the first race of his career. Trainer Tina Hurley shipped Texas-bred Reclusive to Monmouth, where the 5-year-old daughter of Flat Out won her first stakes race, running six furlongs on a fast dirt track in 1:10.76. Bel Pensiero, at 18-1 the second-longest price among seven runners, nabbed second, a nose ahead of Mia’s Crusade. Odds-on favorite Intrepid Daydream finished fifth. The Regret was scheduled for July 21 but failed to fill when that card was drawn.

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