Waist Deep convinces connections to run in Smoke Glacken

As Monmouth Park closes its 75th season, it provides a look to the future. The opening race of the Sunday card, the 36th and final of the meet, is the $75,000 Smoke Glacken Stakes for 2-year-olds.

Waist Deep is the only stakes winner in the field. The Oxbow gelding was third on debut at Delaware Park for trainer Anthony Farrior, then came back to be an eight-length maiden winner three weeks later going 5 1/2 furlongs at the same track. After shipping to Kentucky and finishing fourth in the Ellis Park Juvenile at seven furlongs, he won the Sapling Stakes by 2 3/4 lengths going a mile at Monmouth. He earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 71 for that effort, matching the number he posted in his maiden win. That is the top number in the field

Farrior intended to turn Waist Deep out for the winter after the Sapling and await his 3-year-old campaign, but the gelding’s energy level convinced him to make one more run in the Smoke Glacken, in which he will be cutting back to six furlongs.

“He came out of the race super. He’s doing everything right,” Farrior said. “I gave him five days off after we brought him back to Maryland, and he was bucking and playing and I was like ‘Shoot, he wants to run.’ So I took him to the track, and he is doing even better than he was before the Sapling. I talked to the owners and told them we should give him another start and see how it goes and then we can turn him out. They agreed. He is making it pretty clear he wants to go.”

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Pickin’ Time gets another shot at Waist Deep after finishing second in the Sapling. He earned a 66 Beyer, the second-highest number in the field.

Sunday’s 13-race card also includes the $75,000 Joey P. for New Jersey-breds sprinting on the turf. Royal Urn is looking for his third stakes win of the meet after taking the John J. Reilly Handicap and New Jersey Breeders Handicap. The field also includes Oak Bluffs and Like What I See, first and third in this race last year.

While Kelly Breen heads into the final weekend of the meet with his third Monmouth training title wrapped up, the rider standings could shift in the final days. Paco Lopez, looking to secure his seventh Monmouth riding title, headed into the weekend with 49 winners. Ferrin Peterson has 40 wins, and Joe Bravo has 38. Lopez and Peterson each have 10 mounts – excluding also-eligible and main-track-only possibilities – on Saturday’s 14-race card, while Bravo has four. Peterson has 10 mounts on Sunday, while Bravo has five and Lopez four.

Beginning Saturday, Oct. 3, the New Jersey circuit continues with the Meadowlands-at-Monmouth Park meet. The meet consists of nine cards, each with a stakes, through Oct. 24.