Vigilantes Way comes off the bench looking for a Miss Liberty repeat
Vigilantes Way won the Miss Liberty Stakes when it was run last Aug. 28 at Monmouth Park. She stands a good chance of winning it again Monday.
The Miss Liberty has been moved up three months on the Monmouth calendar, but Vigilantes Way doesn’t need to move up at all to repeat in the $100,000 Miss Liberty, a 1 1/16-mile grass race for older fillies and mares. Vigilantes Way hasn’t raced in eight months, but her trainer, Shug McGaughey, expects the lightly raced 5-year-old to come back running.
“She’s trained really well, looks really well, had a great work on turf here Sunday,” McGaughey said, reached by phone in New York. “I’d be disappointed if she didn’t run to her form.”
The work last Sunday was a half-mile over the Belmont turf course officially clocked in 48.06. Vigilantes Way has breezed steadily since Feb. 25 and McGaughey has aimed at this race long-term. “I knew this race was out there. We’ve been looking forward to running her,” he said.
Vigilantes Way, a Phipps Stable homebred, is by Medaglia d’Oro out of Salute, by Unbridled. Salute’s dam was Personal Ensign, the great Phipps champion trained by McGaughey. Vigilantes Way showed talent all along but only last year put everything together. She was second by just a half-length to the Grade 1-class Mean Mary in the Gallorette and easily won the Grade 3 Eatontown at Monmouth. The Grade 1 Diana, where Vigilantes Way pressed the pace and faded to seventh, proved to be a bridge too far, and by the time Vigilantes Way ended her campaign Sept. 27 with a distant second-place finish in the Violet Stakes at Monmouth, she’d had enough racing for the year.
“Just a little bit over the top by the end of it. We gave her time, turned her out,” said McGaughey.
Vigilantes Way breaks from post 1 and figures to be favored under Paco Lopez.
The filly that beat Vigilantes Way in the Violet, Tamahere, was trained by Chad Brown, and this being an East Coast filly and mare turf stakes, of course Brown has a runner. Rocky Sky carries the colors of Peter Brant and will try to add to Brown’s remarkable five-year record in Monmouth turf stakes: 24-12-11 from 64 starters for a strike rate of 39 percent and an ROI of $2.87.
In her most recent race, the March 12 Hillsborough at Tampa Bay, Rocky Sky finished second, thumped by stablemate Bleecker Street. No shame there, as Bleecker Street returned with an electric closing win in the Modesty Stakes on May 5 at Churchill Downs.
Por Que No scored a wire-to-wire upset over subsequent Grade 1 winner Shantisara in the Boiling Spring last June at Monmouth, while Kentucky shipper Flippant won the $150,000 Virginia Oaks on Aug. 31, but realistically, Rocky Sky looks the only solid hope to dethrone Vigilantes Way.
Queenship, Whimsical Muse, Ask Around, and Ballymore Star complete the field. All starters carry 118 pounds, and the feature goes as race 9, post time 3:59 p.m. Eastern. First post is an early 12:15. An improved forecast suggests the turf will be good to firm.