Percy’s Bar seeks rebound in Monomoy Girl Overnight Stakes preview

Percy’s Bar entered the Monomoy Girl Overnight Stakes with more than a rebound chance attached to her name. Ben Colebrook had the Ashland Stakes winner pointed to Churchill Downs to find out whether her Grade 1 talent still translated after an unplaced Kentucky Oaks effort, or whether that sophomore slump had left a crack in the armor.

The $175,000 race for 3-year-old fillies was scheduled as Race 9 on an 11-race Churchill Downs card, with first post at 12:45 p.m. Eastern and the Monomoy Girl set for 4:56 p.m. The race was run at 1 1/16 miles and carried a $50,000 Kentucky TB Devt Fund contribution, with a 14-horse field limit. It also shared the program with the Chorleywood Stakes, giving the Saturday card a deeper stakes profile and a more meaningful stage for Percy’s Bar’s next step.

That stage mattered because Percy’s Bar had already shown she could run with the best fillies in the division. She dominated the Debutante Stakes at Churchill Downs as a juvenile, crossed the wire first in the Alcibiades Stakes before being disqualified for interference, and then finished a troubled third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. In the Ashland, she answered the question that had lingered over her since the fall by winning by 2 1/4 lengths over Zany as the 5-2 second choice, saving ground and splitting rivals late. The performance earned 100 Kentucky Oaks points, lifted her total to 114, and moved her to second on the Oaks leaderboard at the time.

Colebrook kept the path simple and practical. He said Percy’s Bar’s first work since the Kentucky Oaks came on May 24, when she breezed a half-mile at Keeneland, and he said the Grade 1 Acorn at Saratoga was under consideration before the Monomoy Girl looked more likely. Luan Machado, who had ridden her in every career start through the preview period, was set to remain aboard from post 5, an important sign of continuity around a filly whose best runs have come when her team has kept the picture steady.

The Monomoy Girl field was not a soft landing. Sneaky Good brought graded-stakes experience for LNJ Foxwoods and NK Racing, A.P.’s Girl came in off a third in the Black-Eyed Susan for C R K Stable, and Point of Reference arrived after a recent allowance win for Klaravich Stable. For Percy’s Bar, the race was less about easing back in than about proving the Ashland was the start of a real late-season run, not just a single flash from a filly trying to live on old form.

Churchill Downs framed the race in the name of Monomoy Girl, the Brad Cox-trained champion mare who won 14 of 17 starts and earned $4,776,818, including six victories in seven tries at Churchill Downs. That history made the assignment even sharper for Percy’s Bar: on the same track where Monomoy Girl built her legend, she was asked to show whether her own path still pointed upward.