Marquee Prince Headlines Cox Runners At Remington

Marquee Prince at Churchill Downs

Already celebrating a banner year with probable champion 3-year-old filly Monomoy Girl and Grade 1 winner Leofric among the stakes winners in his barn, trainer Brad Cox will try to add three Remington Park stakes to his total on Sunday.

The headliner of the four horse string Cox is sending to Remington is Listed Springboard Mile contender Marquee Prince with Florent Geroux aboard.

The Cairo Prince colt broke his maiden at a mile on the dirt over the summer at Indiana Grand followed by an allowance optional claimer victory on the grass at Churchill Downs. He comes into this race off a fifth in the one-mile Street Sense Stakes at Churchill Downs, but Cox thinks returning to a two-turn mile will suit his running style better.

“The Street Sense was just a race where we were obviously at Churchill and he was doing well. I took a shot there, he ran respectable and we’re excited about getting him back around two turns,” Cox said. “[The Springboard Mile is] a 2-year-old race, two turns, and has a really nice [$400,000] purse. That’s the biggest factor.”

Currently based at Oaklawn Park, Marquee Prince has a chance of trying the Oaklawn Park Kentucky Derby prep races if he does well here with the Fair Grounds prep route also an option.

“It’s something we’ll look at, either there or Fair Grounds,” he said. “Both tracks have excellent three-year-old programs. Obviously one with the Arkansas Derby and the other with the Louisiana Derby. We’ll kind of let him determine if he’s that quality and go from there.”

While Cox doesn’t have a string at Remington, he doesn’t hesitate to ship them to the track at the race. That is on full display this weekend with three other Cox trainees joining Marquee Prince on the backside.

“If you’ve got a horse who fits a race they have, [we go there]. That’s the biggest reason. If we have a horse we feel deserves a chance, we normally go for just stakes,” he said.

A stakes winner at Del Mar over the summer, Shenandoah Queen makes her first trip to Remington Park for the She’s All In Stakes. The daughter of Henny Hughes earned her first Grade 1 placing two starts ago in the Zenyatta Stakes and is coming out of a fourth place finish at Churchill Downs on the Breeders’ Cup undercard. She will be running under the ownership of Gainesway Farm for the first time at Remington.

Cox has a two-pronged attack in the Jeffery A. Hawk Memorial Stakes, the final race of the 2018 Remington Park meet with last year’s runner-up Dazzling Gem returning and Harlan Punch making his first start at the track.  

Dazzling Gem won an allowance at Oaklawn last spring and has held a good account of himself the rest of 2018. Running at four different tracks this year, he’s hit the board three other times including a second in the Evangeline Mile Stakes and a third in an allowance optional claimer last out. He finished second by a head to Dan the Go to Man in this race last year and looks to go one better in 2018.

Monomoy Girl

Harlan Punch comes into this race off a victory at Zia Park in the Veterans Stakes in a year that has seen him win five of his 12 starts including the Grade 3 Philip H. Iselin Stakes. Third in the Grade 3 Delta Downs Jackpot as a 2-year-old, the gelding spent two years in the allowance and claiming ranks before finding his stride this year in stakes competition with nearly half his $689,058 earnings coming from his 2018 races.

With the year coming to a close over the next few weeks, Cox pinpointed three key things he thinks have contributed to the barn’s success in 2018 with 37 stakes victories, including 20 graded stakes, with 20 different horses.

“We’ve been very fortunate to have an extremely nice group of horses and great clientele that allow us to run horses where they belong, give horses time when they need it, and that’s ultimately what it comes down to. And we have great staff, there’s a lot of factors in trying to run a big stable successful and that’s probably three of the biggest things – placement, clientele and your staff.”

Remington Park’s Sunday card starts at 3:00 p.m. Central with the first stakes race of the day taking place as Race 7 at 5:56 p.m.