Published by ThoroughbredDailyNews.com on September 4, 2020.
After missing the entire 2019 season due to injury and colic, 2018’s champion sophomore filly Monomoy Girl (Tapizar) returned to Grade I glory with an easy score in Friday’s GI La Troienne S. at Churchill Downs. Away in good order from the outside stall in this eight-horse affair, the 2-5 chalk was four-wide rounding the first turn in a joint third as Lady Kate (Bernardini) hustled up to the front with Risky Mandate (Strong Mandate) shadowing her through a :23.4 opening quarter-mile. Racing off the fence in third, Monomoy Girl sat back patiently a few lengths off the top two as the half went in :46.26. Closing the gap with ease on the backstretch run, the Eclipse winner ranged up alongside the pacesetter while three wide turning for home. Shrugging off her rival at the eighth-pole, Monomoy Girl cruised clear under a hand ride for a facile victory. Lady Kate held second and hard-knocking Jersey-bred Horologist (Gemologist) completed the trifecta.
“She’s the only horse I get nervous running,” said winning trainer Brad Cox. “Once I leg up Florent [Geroux] it’s 10 minutes of anxiety. He did have to work on her a little bit to clear off from Lady Kate. She’s a true champion and is able to overcome a four-wide trip into the first turn. She’s the horse of a lifetime. The way she’s trained since the spring, since April, is when she took off.”
“There was no doubt,” said Geroux. “She gave us every indication in the morning that she was back at a top level. In the [GII] Ruffian, when she beat Vexatious (Giant’s Causeway) pretty easily and then Vexatious came back and beat Midnight Bisou (Midnight Lute) [in the GI Personal Ensign S.], it gave us a better line from there. Even if it wasn’t for that, she’s been working extremely well in the morning. There is no doubt she is a champion horse and definitely a horse of a lifetime.”
As for the trip, Geroux said, “There was a little bit of congestion going into the first turn, but I had a nice outside post. I was never worried. I was on the best horse and we had a great trip. I just had to push the button when she was ready.”
Monomoy Girl captured the GII Rachel Alexandra S., GI Ashland S., GI Kentucky Oaks, GI Acorn S., GI CCA Oaks and GI Breeders’ Cup Distaff during her Eclipse award-winning sophomore season in 2018. Given a brief freshening after her championship campaign, the chestnut returned to the Cox barn in the winter of 2019, but was soon sidelined by a case of colic. After rehabbing at WinStar, she rejoined Cox last July, but was sent to the bench yet again with a hamstring injury, which kept her off the track for the rest of her 4-year-old year. Back with Cox once again at the start of 2020, Monomoy Girl made a triumphant return in a sloppy one-mile optional claimer at Churchill Downs May 16 and scored a decisive victory in Belmont’s GII Ruffian S. July 11.
