Bella Aurora Sparkles in $100,000 Gin Talking Triumph

LAUREL, MD – Cash is King and LC Racing’s Monday Morning Qb, three weeks after a fever cost him a chance at making his stakes debut, returned to Laurel Park in full health and rebounded with a three-quarter-length score in Saturday’s $100,000 Heft Stakes.

The Heft for 2-year-olds and $100,000 Gin Talking for 2-year-old fillies, both contested at seven furlongs, were among five stakes worth $500,000 in purses on a nine-race Christmastide Day program that closed out Maryland’s 2019 stakes schedule.

It was just the third career start and first in a stakes for Monday Morning Qb ($6.20), the program favorite for the Maryland Juvenile Futurity Dec. 7 who was scratched the morning of the race. With Jorge Vargas Jr. up for trainer Robert E. ‘Butch’ Reid, the juvenile son of Imagining completed the distance in 1:23.46 over a fast main track.

“It was unfortunate, he got sick going into the race. He popped a fever on us and fortunately my assistant and my grooms were there to pick it up,” Reid said. “He was a little bit off his feed. This is a big, good-doing horse and he never misses an oat in the morning. He left a little feed and ended up with a temperature of close to 103. Fortunately he fought it off well and it was only a couple of days, but I’m very glad we didn’t push our luck with him last time.”

Breaking from the far outside post, Vargas kept Monday Morning Qb in the clear on the outside down the backstretch tracking Romanoff, undefeated in two starts for fall meet-leading trainer Claudio Gonzalez, through fractions of 22.35 and 45.49 seconds.

Racing for the first time beyond six furlongs and first away from his home track at Parx, Monday Morning Qb circled the field on the turn, took command near the three-sixteenths pole and powered through the stretch to turn back a late run from 14-1 long shot New Commission. It was 2 ¾ lengths back to 9-5 favorite Lebda in third, while Del Mar Futurity (G1) winner Nucky tired to last after pressing the pace.

“I was impressed because we asked a lot of him today – coming on the road, coming to a track we weren’t familiar with, and going the seven-eighths of a mile. I always felt this horse was a distance horse. We’ve only begun to scratch the surface with him, I think. We’ve got other ideas down the road,” Reid said.

“We’re going to take it one step at a time. Now he’s out of conditions so there will be a stakes race somewhere for him,” he added. “We want to go a longer distance, too, so our next stop will probably be to find a two-turn race for him somewhere. That’s what I think he’s looking for.”

Standing at Anchor & Hope Farm in Port Deposit, Md., Imagining was a multiple graded-stakes winning millionaire for Phipps Stable and Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey whose biggest win came in the 2014 Man o’War (G1) on turf, leaving the connections of Monday Morning Qb with plenty of options.

“He’s actually really bred for the grass, too. His father was a turf horse, so there may be some turf racing in the future for this horse, also,” Reid said. “He’s a horse that I think we can have a lot of fun with.”

Bella Aurora Sparkles in $100,000 Gin Talking Triumph

Country Life Farm’s Bella Aurora, twice stakes-placed sprinting on the turf this fall, won her second straight start since switching to the turf with a professional 1 ½-length victory in the $100,000 Gin Talking.

Trained by Mike Trombetta, Bella Aurora ($9.80) ran seven furlongs in 1:24.24 under jockey Julian Pimentel, who has been aboard for all three of her lifetime wins from six starts, including a maiden triumph over Laurel’s world-class turf course Aug. 16.

Following that efforts, she was second in the Jamestown against fellow Virginia-breds Sept. 7 at Colonial Downs and third in the Anne Arundel County Sept. 28 at Laurel – all going 5 ½ furlongs – before being stretched out to a mile in her dirt debut, a three-length score Nov. 2.

“We’ve been so happy with her the last couple weeks,” Trombetta said. “We had six or seven weeks to work with and she’s just trained brilliantly. We’ve been very, very happy with her.”

Pimentel was unhurried near the back of the eight-horse field while 21-1 long shot Still Alive went a quarter-mile in 23.64 seconds before yielding the top spot to Fly On Angel through a half in 46.47. Pimentel swung Bella Aurora to the far outside on the far turn, where she swept past her rivals and kept driving to the wire.

Ankle Monitor, also cutting back off a mile win at Laurel, made a belated bid to edge Naughty Thoughts by a nose for second as the 2-1 favorite. Fly On Angel was fourth while Cofactor, seeking her fourth consecutive victory and second straight in a stakes following the Nov. 16 Smart Halo at Laurel, saved ground from her inside post but faded to seventh.

“She’s a really nice filly,” Pimentel said of Bella Aurora. “I was just biding my time all the way around there. I had a ton of horse, and when I took her to the outside she took off.”

Bella Aurora, purchased for $87,000 out of Fasig-Tipton’s Midlantic Eastern Fall sale in 2018 at Timonium, is by Carpe Diem out of the Street Cry mare Street Interest.