Solid field lines up for Eatontown
In a season that has already developed into a competitive one for the female turf division, Saturday’s Grade 3, $100,000 Eatontown Stakes at Monmouth Park has drawn a bulky field that includes all the ingredients of a major event – a Grade 1 winner, several additional graded performers, entrants from divisional heavy-hitters Chad Brown and Graham Motion, and plenty of international flavor.
Time and Motion was the lone Grade 1 winner entered, still seeking her first victory since the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup last October at Keeneland – her fourth stakes victory of the season. However, after drawing an outside post, trainer Jimmy Toner said he planned to scratch the filly and instead run in next week's Grade 2, $500,000 New York Stakes at Belmont Park.
The field is still led by two additional graded stakes winners in Tin Type Gal and Zipessa. Tin Type Gal, who won the Grade 3 Boiling Springs on the Monmouth course last summer for Motion, is making her first start since September. Zipessa, trained by Michael Stidham, returned from a six-month layoff of her own to finish fifth in the Grade 2 Sheepshead Bay at Belmont last out, bobbling at the start but quickly rushing up to lead before tiring on the yielding turf.
Grand Jete, a Juddmonte homebred, made her first start for Brown in the United States, and her first start in five months, a winning one, dominating a Keeneland allowance by 4 1/4 lengths. Brown also saddles Irish-born Light in Paris, who has been in his care since 2015 after she was stakes placed in the early part of her career in France. The mare posted her first stakes victory stateside in April, taking the Plenty of Grace at Aqueduct.
There is additional European influence in the field in the consistent Shaan, trained by Todd Pletcher, and the well-traveled Kyllachy Queen. Stakes-placed Shaan, on the board in eight of her nine starts, scored her first U.S. win in a Keeneland allowance last out. Kyllachy Queen, a stakes winner in Italy and England, is making her second trip to the United States. She finished fifth for trainer Marco Botti against a solid field in the Grade 2 New York Stakes last June at Belmont, then headed to Ireland to finish 12th in the Group 2 Hilboy Estate in July. She was later placed in the care of Christophe Clement in the United States and acquitted herself well in her first start in nine months, finishing second by a neck in a Keeneland allowance on yielding turf.
Multiple graded stakes-placed Quiet Kitten, making her first start for Tom Morley, is an allowance winner on the Monmouth turf. Cali Thirsty Seven, a stakes-placed winner on the course, is coming off a repeat win in the Powder Break Stakes at Gulfstream.
