Vigilantes Way slips through along the inside to take Violet Stakes

This time, Vigilantes Way found a way through and for the first time this year found herself in the Monmouth Park winner’s circle.

Victimized by tough luck while running competitively in three turf-route stakes this summer at Monmouth, Vigilantes Way got home by a half-length over Runaway Rumour in the $98,000 Violet Stakes on Saturday.

Even in victory in a race with only four other runners, Vigilantes Way had to navigate traffic to get home under Paco Lopez. Full of run but trapped behind and inside rivals in upper stretch, Lopez steered down to the rail to find room in mid-stretch, and once in the clear, Vigilantes Way finished with a flourish. Flighty Lady was finishing well while Runaway Rumour came over the top, but Vigilantes Way was going best and earned an overdue first win of 2022.

“When it’s not that many horses you expect something to open up eventually and it did,” Lopez said. “She likes to be covered and then run late. I got lucky that there was room on the rail in the stretch and when I asked her, she opened up.

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“She is always right there. She is just a classy, honest filly. This was a short field, but she beat some good horses.”

Runaway Rumour was a neck better than Flighty Lady, who was followed across the line by Star Seeking and Mademoiselle. Fool Yourself and Thisnameisokay were scratched.

Winning time for 1 1/16 miles over a firm course was 1:41.78, and Vigilantes Way paid $3 to win. The 5-year-old mare, trained by Shug McGaughey, is a Phipps Stable homebred by Medaglia d’Oro out of Salute, by Unbridled.