Veteran Stage Left fresh for Rumson

To fully see Stage Left’s suitability to the $100,000 Rumson Stakes on Sunday at Monmouth Park you need to take a trip back in time.

The Rumson is a dirt sprint, but an especially short one, carded for five furlongs. Stage Left is a 7-year-old making his 38th career start on Sunday. His debut came about 5 1/2 years ago, in an April 2-year-old maiden race at Keeneland, where, going a mere 4 1/2 furlongs, Stage Left won off by four lengths. The gelding can run short.

Ironically, Stage Left’s second start came at Monmouth in the one-mile Sapling Stakes, far beyond his best trip. He made his second Monmouth appearance this past May, when he was soundly defeated in the six-furlong Mr. Prospector Stakes, his Beyer Speed Figure sinking to an 82. That figure had been preceded by a 99 and a 91 and was followed by a 93 when Stage Left won under starter-allowance conditions July 19 at Delaware Park.

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Owner-trainer David Jacobson ran Stage Left back in the Mr. Prospector just 16 days after the gelding finished a good third in the Runhappy Stakes. A quick turnaround had worked earlier this year when Stage Left won the King Leatherbury in Maryland on nine days’ rest, but the demanding schedule probably caught up to Stage Left in the Mr. Prospector.

Jacobson has learned his lesson. He waited the better part of two months to run Stage Left at Delaware, and now Stage Left comes back more than six weeks after that start. He’s fresh, fast enough, and we know the horse can excel at short sprints – no wonder leading rider Paco Lopez takes the call.

Little Vic, rail-drawn speed, exits a 30-length loss in the Grade 1 Vanderbilt at Saratoga. Yes, that was a tough spot, but Little Vic won the Grade 3 Tom Fool in March and at his best wasn’t that badly overmatched in the Vanderbilt. The Saratoga race came on a sloppy surface, but Little Vic had won his first two wet track starts, including the Tom Fool over muddy going. Blinkers come off for the Rumson, but Little Vic just seems off form.

Feast won the 2022 Rumson in his first start after being claimed for $25,000, but that performance was a radical outlier and Feast hasn’t come close to matching it since. Short-sprint specialists Depoli and Aggrandize are in too tough. Spun and Won and Twisted Ride class up adequately but want to go farther than five furlongs.

Enter Stage Left.

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