Schultz eyes first graded win in Iselin with upset chance Whelen Springs

Third-year trainer Lindsay Schultz stands an upset chance to post her first graded stakes win when she sends Whelen Springs out Saturday in the Grade 3, $250,000 Philip H. Iselin Stakes at Monmouth Park.

Schultz’s charge must beat likely odds-on favorite Zozos, a 4-year-old Munnings colt who also seeks his first graded win. Zozos’s trainer, Brad Cox, won his first graded race in 2014 and has 22 such victories in 2023.

Cox, however, has just two winners from 10 Monmouth favorites, nine of those in stakes, over the last five years. Warrior’s Charge won the Iselin in 2020 by only a half-length at 1-2. In 2021, Mandaloun captured the Pegasus by a neck at 3-10. Cox’s two stakes favorites this meet were Squire Creek, all but eased in the Jersey Shore, and Slip Mahoney, fourth in the Long Branch.

Whelen Springs finished second last month to odds-on favorite Proxy in the 1 1/8-mile Monmouth Stakes. Proxy set the pace in the Monmouth, while Whelen Springs made a three-wide bid past the quarter pole to briefly take the lead before Proxy, a Grade 1 winner, asserted his class.

Zozos hasn’t reached Proxy’s heights, but Schultz correctly points out that top to bottom the Iselin, contested at a 1 1/16-mile distance that will better suit Whelen Springs than 1 1/8 miles, is a deeper race than the Monmouth.

Also entered are Trademark, third in the Salvator Mile earlier this meet; Weyburn, who was dismal in the July 1 John Nerud and tries a two-turn dirt race for the first time in 15 months; Far Mo Power, who likely has the $300,000 Parx Dirt Mile as a major goal; and Steal Sunshine, winless in 2023.

Schultz was a longtime assistant for trainer Tom Proctor, then worked as farm manager for Proctor’s client, Glen Hill Farm, before assisting Shug McGaughey and going out on her own late in 2021 with a bump from Marshall Gramm, co-manager of Ten Strike Racing. Schultz had a solid 2022 Monmouth meet and has 25 horses in her barn this summer.

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She won her first stakes July 15, when Alex Joon landed a Virginia-restricted race at Colonial Downs and her first open stakes when Highestdistinction upset the Oceanport on Aug. 13 at Monmouth. On the same day, Cecile came within a head of victory in the $100,000 Searching at Laurel Park.

Whelen Springs, an Arkansas-bred, won the six-furlong Bachelor Stakes in April 2022 at Oaklawn Park but came to Schultz late this spring having lost six races since, including several bad defeats. Schultz immediately made a change, running the 4-year-old around two turns.

“He ran so bad all winter, we kind of had to try something different,” said Schultz. “He’s a big, stout horse. There’s a lot to him. It seemed like he was meant to be a decent horse. I thought a flat mile at Monmouth, maybe he’d have speed and kind of hang in there longer. It worked out he liked the two turns.”

Whelen Springs won a third-level allowance over a mile in his first local start before his improved second in the Monmouth. He’s drawn outside in a six-horse field and can track Zozos, the likely pacesetter under Florent Geroux.

Cox has spaced Zozos’s races this season, and the colt, a winner of three straight, runs for the first time since going wire to wire in the one-mile Hanshin Stakes over a sloppy track at Ellis Park. After rain came during that card, the Ellis main track developed a strong rail bias that at least contributed to Zozos’s performance. And maybe the Arkansas-bred for the young trainer has another level still to find.

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