Monmouth | Horse Racing Free Tips

Toner Has High Expectations For Seasons Ahead Of Saturday’s Boiling Springs Stakes

Jimmy Toner thought enough of Seasons as a 2-year-old last year that he tried the Tapit filly in a Grade 1 race in just her second career start. And that was Plan B, said the veteran trainer.

Plan A was the Breeders' Cup, a goal that never materialized.

Now he has the Kentucky-bred filly embarking on her second start at 3, still convinced that her potential and talent could lead to something special. Seasons, who has only raced on turf in her three career starts, will be on the grass again for Saturday's $75,000 Boiling Springs Handicap, the feature race on Monmouth Park's 12-race card.

The Boiling Springs, at a mile and a sixteenth, has attracted a field of seven 3-year-old fillies.

“After she broke her maiden in her first start at Saratoga last year (in a Maiden Special Weight race at a mile and a sixteenth on the turf on Aug. 9) we were trying to make the Breeders' Cup with her,” said Toner. “The way it turned out the options that were there left us with option B. There was another race at Saratoga but it was too close to her first one. So we sent her to Woodbine for the (Grade 1) Natalma. She ran a bang-up third.

“After that she came up with some minor issues and we just couldn't make it to the Breeders' Cup. So we gave her time off. Next thing you know we look up and it's May, so we had to get started on her again.”

Seasons, out of the multiple Grade 1-winning turf mare Winter Memories, returned with an impressive second-place finish in the Hilltop Stakes at Pimlico on May 14, beaten a neck after stumbling badly at the start and rallying from 10th.

“She ran a huge race that day,” said Toner. “She went down to her nose at the break and finished well. She just missed. It really was a big race.

“She's a quality filly. We're trying to get black type with her and hopefully we can in this race.”

Owned by LNJ Foxwoods and Phipps Racing Partnership (her breeder as well), Seasons has trained sharply at Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md. for this start. Paco Lopez has the mount.

“She came out of her last race good and she has been working great,” said Toner. “She has a presence about her. Most good horses do. It's their awareness about everything. And she has done everything right.

“We wanted to make sure she had enough time between races and this was the perfect spot to come back in. We're looking for a good effort and hopefully she runs well.”

Toner has started just three horses at the meet so far but has won with one, with Traffic Song prevailing in a Maiden Special Weight race. Two years ago, the veteran conditioner won the Grade 1 United Nations with Hunter O'Riley and the Cliffhanger Stakes with Hawkish at Monmouth Park.

Miss Leslie, Orbs Baby Girl, Shantisara, Ravir, Marlborough Road and Por Que No round out the field for the 42nd edition of the Boiling Springs. Shantisara, trained by Chad Brown, will be making her U.S. debut.

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Caravel Using Friday’s Goldwood As Springboard To Ambitious Summer Schedule

Elizabeth Merryman isn't convinced she has seen the best from Caravel, a 4-year-old filly she bred, owns and trains.

But she's hoping Friday's inaugural $75,000 Goldwood Stakes at Monmouth Park is another step toward finding out where the ceiling is for a turf specialist she feels will be the best horse she has ever had.

“This race will tell me a lot,” said Merryman. “A month from now there are four filly and mare turf sprints within a five-day period. There's one at Colonial (the Andy Guest on July 26), one at Saratoga (the Grade 3 Caress on July 24), one at Woodbine (the Grade 2 Royal North on Aug. 1) and one at Pimlico. This will give me an indication (of where to go next).

“There's a really good filly in this race (Miss Auramet) who has done nothing wrong that she has not run against yet. So we'll see.”

The Goldwood, set for five furlongs on the grass, has attracted a field of eight and headlines a six-race twilight card. Miss Aurament, trained by Kathleen O'Connell, comes off an impressive win in the slop in the Politely Stakes on May 30 at Monmouth Park. That race was originally scheduled for the turf.

Caravel's credentials, though, stack up with any of the fillies or mares in the race. She is 5-for-7 lifetime with two thirds, with her only defeats coming on a yielding turf and a good turf.

The Pennsylvania-bred daughter of Mizzen Mast-ZeeZee ZoomZoom by Congrats was set to go in Tuesday's Power By Far Stakes at Parx until the race was taken off the turf.

“Her training hasn't been smooth to this race since we were supposed to go Tuesday,” said Merryman, whose 14-horse stable is based at Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md. “We'll see how she handles the adversity, with everything not being quite right.”

Merryman was convinced there was something special about Caravel from the outset and chose not to rush her as a 2-year-old, allowing her to go through a series of growth spurts before hitting the racetrack.

Her anticipated debut hardly went as planned, however. She broke 10th and last in a five-furlong Maiden Special Weight turf dash at Penn National on June 20 last year. And then something remarkable happened. She rallied from last for most of the race to win going away by 1¼ lengths.

“Not only did she break last, she was steadily dropping back,” said Merryman. “I was watching the race thinking `My gosh, I really like this filly. How can she be this bad? How can I be so wrong?' And then it just clicked for her. It was amazing to see.

“The thing is, she has always been good from the gate. I think she was just caught off guard.”

Caravel went on to win four of her five starts at 3 and is coming off a victory in the The Very One Stakes at Pimlico on May 14 in her second start at 4.

“She has come back a little bigger and stronger,” said Merryman, who has been training since 2004. “She carries a bit more weight now and looks a little more robust.”

A winner of $212,872 from her seven career starts, Caravel drew post position 1 for the Goldwood Stakes.

“The post is not a big deal with her. She kind of dictates what she wants to do,” said Merryman. “You don't have to send her and you don't have to take her back. You just have to sit as chilly as possible and let her tell you where she wants to be.”

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Stidham Hoping For Big Effort From Micheline In Sunday’s Eatontown Stakes

Now that Micheline has notched her first graded stakes victory, doing so in her 2021 debut, trainer Michael Stidham is convinced there's much more to come this year for the 4-year-old daughter of Bernardini.

The next step is Sunday's Grade 3 Eatontown Stakes at Monmouth Park, with the $150,000 Father's Day feature race attracting a full field of 12 (as well as four alternates). Stidham is hoping the mile and a sixteenth grass race sets up the Godolphin runner for the Grade 1 Beverly D. Stakes on Aug. 14 at Arlington.

“We had her ready to go at Belmont Park on June 4 (in the Grade 2 New York Stakes) but it absolutely poured rain,” he said. “It had rained there for a couple of days and right before the race they had to postpone the post parade because it was raining so hard. So we scratched her out of that.

“We needed a race for her. We knew this one would come up tough but we're pointing to the Beverly D. So we needed a race. It's time to get another race in her.

“Hopefully we'll get a good firm turf course on Sunday at Monmouth.”

Stidham learned about Micheline's aversion to a soft or yielding turf the hard way. After a sharp seasonal debut that saw her win the Grade 2 Hillsborough Stakes at Tampa Downs on March 6 off a five-month layoff – “I didn't feel like I had her cranked up to 100 percent but she won anyway,” Stidham said – Micheline was a tiring sixth in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley Stakes at Keeneland on April 10.

That race was run over a yielding turf course.

“The race at Keeneland was a disappointment but the rain came down in buckets all morning and all day and the turf was horribly soft,” said Stidham. “She hated it. She never looked comfortable on it. When it came time for her to make her move she was spinning her wheels.

“To me it's a throw-out race.”

Micheline has proven to be a consistent turf router during her 14-race career with five wins, two seconds and a third. She has earned $671,978.

“She was always a filly that showed us a lot of ability and talent,” said Stidham. “The proof of that is we shipped her to Saratoga for her first career start (in 2019). That will tell you what we thought of her. We rarely ship to Saratoga unless we really like one.”

Micheline finished third in her racing debut. Stidham then shipped her to Monmouth Park, where she won the Sorority Stakes at a mile on the grass – as a maiden.

If Stidham has any reservations about the Eatontown Stakes — beyond the full, competitive field — it's the distance. Micheline won the Hillsborough at a mile and an eighth and has also won a mile and a half stakes race.

She is 1-for-5 lifetime at the Eatontown distance.

“I would say it's a little short for her,” Stidham said. “I would say she is better going a mile and an eighth and up. We hope she can overcome the distance Sunday with her class and talent.”

Mychel Sanchez has the mount.

First race post time for Sunday's 12-race card is 12:15.

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‘Old-School Guy’ Jose Ferrer Enjoying The Hot Hand At Monmouth Park

Jockey Jose Ferrer will often dust off one of his favorite expressions to make sense of having booted home an improbable longshot, as was the case in last Saturday's Grade 3 Salvator Mile at Monmouth Park, when he won with Informative at odds of 79-1.

One is that the horses can't read the tote board.

The other is that you can't win by staying in the jockeys' room.

These days, he may want to add one more to his list: Age is just a number.

The 57-year-old Ferrer heads into Monmouth Park's Friday twilight card as the track's leading rider after 10 days of the 53-day meet, with 16 winners from 56 mounts (a 29 percent clip). He combined for seven winners last Saturday and Sunday at Monmouth.

“It's been fantastic lately. It's an unbelievable feeling,” said Ferrer, who has ridden 4,575 winners in a career that began in 1982. “You get those times where everything goes right for you, when everything seems to click.

“That's where I feel I am now.”

Ferrer, who won his only Monmouth Park riding title in 2018, sees no reason his early success can't continue through the end of the meet. Overall, he has hit the board with 32 of his 56 mounts.

It's not as if he is riding a majority of favorites either. Nearly half (seven) of his winners so far have paid $12 or more and three have returned $30 or more, topped by the $161.60 win price that Informative produced.

Informative's victory skews the numbers a bit, of course, but Ferrer's average win price at the Monmouth meet is $20.60.

“I've had good stretches where I've won three or four in a day and then came back and won three or four the next day,” he said. “But to win the Salvator Mile, a Grade 3, with such a long shot and to win three other races on the card, two with longshots, and then three the next day … that's a pretty good stretch.”

Ferrer is able to excel at an age when most jockeys are nearing the end of their careers in large part because of his fitness regimen.

It's almost at the point where he is obsessed with working out. He says he is in the best shape of his life.

“I lift a lot of weights. I try to work out and lift twice a day,” he said. “I'll lift before I go to the track and on off days. I ride a bike whenever I can, too. Monday through Thursday I ride a couple of miles with my wife and (two) kids. I know I have to work twice as hard as the younger guys do. You have to put in the work.

“A lot of younger guys spend their time on social media. I'm old school. I don't have time for that. I need to work out and stay fit to stay competitive every day I go out there to ride. I have learned you have to work if you want good things to happen. They don't just happen because you want them to.”

Ferrer also enjoys the role of elder statesman that he has in the jockeys' room at Monmouth, always willing to pass along his accrued knowledge with an inquisitive young rider. In 2018 he won the prestigious George Woolf Award, which has been presented annually since 1950 to a jockey who demonstrates high standards of personal and professional conduct on and off the racetrack.

“It's a blessing to keep riding this long and at my age,” said Ferrer. “I like that some of the younger guys come to me for my knowledge. I am always there to help if I can. Older riders helped me when I was coming up. So I feel like I should share my knowledge and experience.”

Ferrer, who hails from Santruce, Puerto Rico, has also made a seamless transition to New Jersey's strict no crop rule – an adjustment that would seem to be easier for younger riders not as set in their ways.

But the opposite is true, says Ferrer.

“It goes back to being an old-school guy when you would mostly hand ride in the 1980s and 1990s,” he said. “That's when you depended more on pushing a horse with the reins. So it's almost back to the 1980s for me and how I was brought up riding. The stick back then was the weakest link in your riding. I was always hand riding. You didn't use the whip until you absolutely had to use it.

“So this is my foundation. I came up hand riding.”

He also came up winning – something he is still doing, all these years later.

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