Stolen Holiday steals the show in Eatontown Stakes
Stolen Holiday was an appropriately named upset winner of the Grade 3, $150,000 Eatontown Stakes at Monmouth Park on Saturday.
Jockey Jose Lezcano absolutely stole the Eatontown by setting a dawdling pace and dashing to the finish. With the race’s only other speed, Por Que No, an early scratch, Lezcano put Stolen Holiday right onto a lead she’d never relinquish.
Unpressured, the lightly raced 5-year-old mare crawled through fractions of 25.51, 50.61, and 1:14.22 for six furlongs. Lezcano let his mount out a notch for a fourth quarter mile in 23.37 and, with Stolen Holiday getting her final half-furlong in 5.81 seconds, there was no catching her. Final time for the 1 1/16 miles on a firm course was 1:42.30. Stolen Holiday paid $18.40.
Finishing second, about 1 1/2 lengths behind Stolen Holiday, was her better-fancied Shug McGaughey-trained stablemate Vigilantes Way, who chased the pacesetter home in a game effort but had little chance to catch her.
Lemista, caught flat-footed around the far turn when the sprint home commenced, rallied decently up the rail to snatch third from her Chad Brown-trained stablemate Fluffy Socks. The 8-5 favorite, Fluffy Socks raced from the rear of the field and tried a wide run around the far turn, but the combination of ground loss and the slow pace proved her undoing.
Alms came from last to finish fifth, followed by Whimsical Muse and 2-1 second choice Princess Grace, who raced wide with no cover around the first turn and did not run as poorly as her placing suggests while making her first start since last fall.
Stolen Holiday won for the fourth time in just 10 starts and landed her first stakes win in her third try. Bred by Orpendale and owned by Annette Allen, Stolen Holiday is a daughter of War Front and Silk and Scarlet, by Sadler’s Wells. Her sister, Minorette, won the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks Invitational in 2014.
Stolen Holiday was coming off a mildly fading sixth in the Beaugay Stakes at Belmont Park. On Saturday at Monmouth, she and her rider pulled off a theft.