Running Away scores in the Monmouth Oaks (Ryan Denver/EQUI-PHOTO)
Tom Luicci/Monmouth Park
OCEANPORT, N.J. – Ever since being switched to the dirt, Running Away has been nearly perfect in five starts now, with the only blemish two races back in the Grade 1 Ashland Stakes.
Now the Wesley Ward trainee is a graded stakes winner as well.
With jockey Victor Espinoza able to secure a tracking trip just off the flanks of the front-running Paris Lily for the opening mile, Running Away made her move midway through the final turn and then drew off for a 1¼-length victory in Saturday’s Grade 3, $250,000 Monmouth Oaks at Monmouth Park.
The winning time for the mile and a sixteenth was 1:46.26.
“He rode a very patient race, sitting off that early pace-setter with Paco Lopez,” said Ward, whose filly is usually the one setting the fractions. “I didn’t know how it was going to end up. On paper, and also training her, when she is in front she gets kind of brave. This time she was in a beautiful stalking position and when he called on her she responded. I was really proud of the filly.”
Sent off at 9-2 in the field of seven 3-year-old fillies, the Kentucky-bred daughter of Gun Runner won for the fourth time in seven starts and earned her third stakes victory.
Fondly, the 6-5 favorite, had to settle for second after a slow start. She was 2½ lengths better than Paris Lily.
“As far as all of the speed on paper, that’s always a concern,” said Espinoza. “Before the race there’s always a concern with that. I figured if I was going to go I might have to try something crazy. I was able to ease her back a little bit; not too much, just a little bit, and I was hoping to stick there and just clear on the first turn.”
Running Away stalked Paris Lily through fractions of :23.36, :47.18, 1:12.44 and 1:39.33 before taking command coming out of the turn.
After starting her career with two turf races, she has been strictly dirt since then, having won the Horseshoe Indianapolis Handicap by 4½ lengths over a sloppy track at Horseshow Indianapolis in her last start on May 14.
That was achieved in her preferred front-running style.
She showed a different dimension on Saturday.
“Watching the race, as a jockey I might have ridden it differently and I might not have had the same outcome because I’d have probably just went,” said Ward, a former rider. “The first few jumps out of the gate she kind of stumbled but she picked herself up right away and got right into it.”
Owned by Stud TNT, Running Away’s four wins have come on four different tracks.
“We had Kentucky Oaks aspirations for her but it didn’t materialize when we gave her a little time and ran her in the Ashland Stakes (an eighth-place finish at Keeneland on April 7),” Ward said. “With a little bit of a troubled trip and start she faltered on us in that race. We gave her time again and she won and now she has won again today.
“She’s turning into a high-quality filly.”
