Contact: Alicia Hughes, NTRA Communications, 859-422-2663, ahughes@ntra.com
It was all so routine for Monomoy Girl during her 2020 campaign, from the way she reached the winner’s circle in any manner of her choosing to the casual fashion in which she faced supposed heirs to her throne and made them look common.
Each time she hit the track, the daughter of Tapizar performed as if she were immune to setbacks that would derail most racehorses. Given that her career could have been declared over at multiple points the year before, it made her 5-year-old campaign that much more of a marvel.
Two years ago, Monomoy Girl was crowned the best of her division when she earned the Eclipse Award for champion 3-year-old filly. When the 50th edition of the awards ceremony concludes on Jan. 28, the chestnut mare could have the distinction of being named the best runner in North America, period, as she contends with Breeders’ Cup Classic hero Authentic and multiple Grade 1 winner Improbable for Horse of the Year honors.
At face value, Monomoy Girl’s 2020 season was a four-race clinic in superiority capped off by her handy victory in the Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff Nov. 7 at Keeneland. Considering she had spent 18 months on the sidelines due to various physical setbacks before returning to the races last May, her ongoing stranglehold over the distaff ranks was something to behold.
After missing her entire 4-year-old season due to a bout of colic and a subsequent gluteal strain that emerged, everyone wondered if Monomoy Girl would look remotely like her old self when she began her comeback in an allowance optional claiming race at Churchill Downs last May 16. A 2 ¾-length victory that day was the first indictor that her competitive fire still raged and, in her return to graded stakes company in the Grade 2 Ruffian Stakes on July 11, she edged clear to score a two-length triumph over future top-level winner Vexatious.
“I obviously had to see it in a race to say she was back, I had to see the race in the Ruffian to know that she was back and could compete at the Grade 1 levels,” trainer Brad Cox said. “But there were a couple works at Keeneland where it was like, okay, we just have to find this right race to come back in. She’s been a life changer for us. To be so consistent, it’s almost unseen or unheard of. She’s a fighter and she’s a winner.”
Churchill Downs was already the site of two of Monomoy Girl’s defining moments as she captured the 2018 Kentucky Oaks and that year’s Breeders’ Cup Distaff beneath the Twin Spires. When she sauntered onto the Louisville track for the Grade 1 La Troienne Stakes on Sept. 4 and emerged with yet another handy win, any lingering hope among her rivals that she had lost a high-level step went crashing by the wayside.
“(The Ruffian), that was impressive. But when you looked out there, there were still some other fillies that you weren’t sure where she was going to stack up,” said Sol Kumin, who campaigned Monomoy Girl in partnership with Michael Dubb, The Elkstone Group, and Bethlehem Stables before selling her to Spendthrift Farm for $9.5 million at the Fasig-Tipton November Sale. “The La Troienne, after that one you were like ‘Okay, she’s going to be tough (in the Breeders’ Cup).’
“When you pull up her past performance lines, she’s barely ever been beaten by a horse at different ages, at different distances, different surfaces, different tracks. It’s pretty outstanding, it really is.”
In the days leading up to the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, Monomoy Girl had her connections quietly beaming as she turned her morning gallops into full on previews of what she was about to uncork over the Lexington oval. There was no shortage of worthy challengers, most notably sophomore standout Swiss Skydiver, who had defeated Kentucky Derby winner Authentic in the Preakness Stakes.
As has been the case for virtually her entire career, however, Monomoy Girl simply would not yield to what was supposed to be a testing challenge. Barely 24 hours after notching that 1 ¾-length victory, she delivered another knockout performance in the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion after which it was announced she would remain in training with Cox for 2021.
“She’s the one that I think showed the nation that we could play at the Grade 1 level,” Cox said after the Distaff. “She was our first Grade 1 winner here this the Ashland in 2018 and she’s just done so much for so many different people’s careers. Just very fortunate and thankful that she’s came along and she’s a champion. She means a lot to us.”