Vigilantes Way ships in for shot at third stakes win of meet
The road from New York to New Jersey has been a profitable one this summer for the 4-year-old filly Vigilantes Way. In June, she shipped to win the Grade 3 Eatontown over the Monmouth Park turf course, and on Aug. 28, Vigilantes Way came to town and won the Miss Liberty Stakes.
Trained by Shug McGaughey, Vigilantes Way has found Monmouth success at the expense of several horses from the powerhouse Chad Brown stable, and she has two more of them to beat Saturday in the $100,000 Violet Stakes.
Only seven fillies and mares were entered in the 1 1/16-mile Violet, with Vigilantes Way drawn on the outside. On the rail is the Brown-trained Counterparty Risk, whom Vigilantes Way beat in the Eatontown and the Miss Liberty, though another Brown filly, Tamahere, could pose a sterner challenge to Vigilantes Way, who in her Monmouth victories also beat Miss Teheran and Nay Lady Nay, two more Brown fillies.
Four-year-old Tamahere, a French import by Wootton Bassett, started her 2021 campaign with a solid second over a sodden Keeneland grass course behind slow pacesetting Juliet Foxtrot in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley, but things have not gone so well since that race. Tamahere clunked home ninth in the Just a Game and was defeated at odds of roughly 1-2 in a Saratoga allowance race July 28 before coming back toward her best in the Ballston Spa Stakes on Aug. 28. There, Tamahere went to the lead and set a legitimate pace, holding on for fourth while beaten less than a length by Brown-trained winner Viadera.
Is that sufficient form to handle Vigilantes Way? Perhaps not. Between her Monmouth trips, Vigilantes Way also raced at Saratoga, where McGaughey gave her a Grade 1 shot in the Diana on July 17. Vigilantes Way faded to seventh after pressing a moderate pace over a good grass course. The Diana’s nine-furlong trip might have been longer than ideal for Vigilantes Way and a half-furlong reduction in distance figures to help the filly Saturday. Also, Vigilantes Way already is twice proven not just on the Monmouth course, but in races where jockeys cannot hit a horse with their riding crop, per New Jersey Racing Commission rules. Paco Lopez, who rode her to the two Monmouth wins, is at Parx Racing on Saturday, and Isaac Castillo picks up the mount on this Phipps Stable homebred.
Counterparty Risk has been knocking on the door in her recent races and can’t be discounted at what ought to be a fair price. In the unlikely event the Violet is rained onto the main track, Ice Princess figures to be a big favorite.
The Violet goes as race 7 on a 14-race card, first post 12:15 p.m. Eastern.