Stilleto Boy may employ new-found speed in Hollywood Gold Cup

In races last year against the likes of Flightline, Knicks Go, Life Is Good, and Medina Spirit, Stilleto Boy understandably was kept off the pace, but in his last start, the Grade 2 Californian, he was sent to the front and never looked back, a style he may employ again Monday in the Grade 1, $400,000 Hollywood Gold Cup at Santa Anita.

The Californian was a revelation. Stilleto Boy got a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 108 in that 1 1/8-mile race, and now he’ll head back out to 1 1/4 miles, the distance at which he finished third in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap less than three months ago.

Neither of the horses who finished in front of Stilleto Boy in the Big Cap are in the Gold Cup. Express Train, runner-up in the Californian, is bypassing the race, having last worked May 16, and Warrant did not return to California after most recently finishing fourth in the Grade 3 Ben Ali at Keeneland.

The Gold Cup wound up with a field of five, the most prominent rival to Stilleto Boy being Royal Ship, a Group 1 winner in his native Brazil, second in the Gold Cup last year, and a dynamic winner of the listed John Shear Mile on April 10 in his first start in 7 1/2 months for Richard Mandella.

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Defunded and Spielberg, both now with Sean McCarthy after previously being with Bob Baffert, and There Goes Harvard, stepping into stakes company off a pair of allowance wins for Michael McCarthy, complete the lineup.

The Gold Cup is race 4 on the 10-race card, making it the final tune-up before the Rainbow 6, which has a mandatory payout, commences.

Stilleto Boy, whom Ed Moger Jr. trains for his brother Steve, has proven to be well worth the $420,000 they paid for the now 4-year-old gelding at a horses of racing age sale last year. He has turned in a series of solid, respectable performances in Grade 1 races – third in the Big Cap, Malibu, and Pegasus World Cup, second in the Awesome Again – and finally made it to the winner’s circle for the Mogers with new tactics in the Californian.

“We thought he could make the lead, hustled him out of there, and he was still strong at the end,” Ed Moger said of the strategy engineered by Juan Hernandez. “One thing about him – nobody’s ever passed him in the stretch.”

Royal Ship got a 103 Beyer in the John Shear, which was an ideal tune-up for this main goal.

“He’s trained out of it good. I think there will be improvement,” said Mandella, who said he gave Royal Ship time off over the winter because he was “stiff and sore.”

Defunded is the more intriguing of the McCarthy duo. He returned from a nine-month layoff with the best race of his career, earning a 103 Beyer in a second-level allowance.

“He needed to run that day. He was very sharp,” said McCarthy, who said both his runners were entered in part to “take advantage of the small field.”