Prince of Monaco gallops July 29 at Del Mar (Ernie Belmonte/Past The Wire)
By Laura Pugh
It isn’t uncommon for a juvenile to win impressively this time of year… especially coming from the barn of trainer Bob Baffert. What is uncommon, however, is for them to win the way Prince of Monaco did in the Best Pal stakes.
Adjectives don’t really cover the performance, so instead, I’ll give a couple of comparisons. Who remembers Shanghai Bobby, Uncle Mo, American Pharoah? All three were completely dominant as juveniles in a way that not many are anymore. The way Prince of Monaco won the Best Pal Stakes at Delmar, was reminiscent of the way the above three dominated during their respective 2-year-old seasons.
In the Best Pal, Prince of Monaco didn’t do what most inexperienced babies do. He didn’t fly to the front and vye for the lead, overwhelming more underdeveloped foes with his sheer early speed. That was what his stablemate, the expensive Muth, attempted to do. No, instead, Prince of Monaco relaxed so well in the early stages, that he was five lengths off the pace at the first quarter call.
Then, something even more impressive, he made a strong middle move into a :44.76 half mile, going from five lengths behind to one and one half. This would give him a second internal quarter of roughly :22.40, which would have been faster than his individual opening quarter, roughly 22.60.
Despite running two sub-23-second quarters in a row, with the second being faster than the first, he still had plenty left to not only overtake stablemate Muth but draw away from him. The chart reads that the fifth furlong was caught in :12.14, but considering Prince of Monaco was 1 ½ lengths back at the half call, his individual split is closer to :11.90. His final furlong was an unpressured :12.29, in which he coasted home much the best.
For his effort, Prince of Monaco was given a lofty Beyer Speed Figure of 103, 22 points higher than Dreamfyre in the Sorrento Stakes the day before. Given that his race was 1.33 seconds faster than the Sorrento, a high figure was to be expected… though, not that high.
TimeformUS, another popular speed figure agency gave Dreamfyre a 104, which based upon what head figure maker Craig Milkowski has said in the past, would normally be calculated to an 84 BSF. They gave the Prince of Monaco a 116, which comes out to a 96.
Beyer and Timeform are fairly close, only 3 points different when it comes to Dreamfyre, who ran a day earlier and over one second slower than Prince of Monaco. The six-point difference there would indicate that Beyer either inflated the figure for Prince of Monaco or rated the track variant for Sunday slower than Saturday, where TimeformUS likely kept the variant the same or similar.
Personally, I prefer the consistency of TimeformUS figures, however, the figures are both fast and indicate that Prince of Monaco has the potential to be a very serious horse.
Prince of Monaco has the raw speed of all three of the above juveniles, but interestingly enough, seems the most precocious of them all. Only Shanghai Bobby had competed in a stakes race this early in his career, but his figures were much lower until the Champagne Stakes in October. American Pharoah and Uncle Mo both had high figures but didn’t even compete in their maidens until August.
To this point, not only is Prince of Monaco a faster juvenile than the three listed above, but he’s reached that point much earlier, while also keeping a cool temper that allows his jockey flexibility in races. As noted earlier, that is something very rare for such a lightly raced colt. Could he tail off as the year progresses? Sure, it’s a possibility, but pedigree wise there are several influences that indicate he will reach his peak as a 3-year-old instead.
There is a little over 3 months left in the year for Thoroughbred racing. That is plenty of time to see exactly how Prince of Monaco develops. This author believes he has what it takes to become one of the most accomplished juveniles in recent history.
All this and Monaco is our publisher Jonathan Stettin’s favorite hangout in the world……
