BY TAMMY A. GANTT
The fifth edition of the Haskell Preview Day at Monmouth Park on Saturday set the stage for NYRA Bets Haskell Stakes Day on Sat., July 18, with a showcase of winners including Gimme a Nother in the $150,000 Grade 3 Eatontown Stakes, Baby Vino in the $125,000 NYRA Bets Pegasus Stakes, Program Trading in the $125,000 Monmouth Stakes, and East Avenue in the $150,000 Grade 3 Salvator Mile Stakes.
The Eatontown win is the first race in 2026 for Gimme a Nother, who came off a long 9-month layoff training at Fair Hill. She last raced on Sept. 6, 2025, at Del Mar winning the Grade 2 John C. Mabee Stakes. She began her career in Johannesburg, South Africa knocking out seven straight wins, including two Grade 1’s, two Grade 2’s and a Grade 3 prior to making her U.S. debut at Tampa Bay Downs on March 3, 2025 where she ran second in the Grade 2 Hillsborough Stakes, losing by three-quarters of a length to multiple graded stakes winner Saffron Moon for her owner Newstead Stables, LLC.
The Eatontown Stakes, at a mile and a sixteenth on the turf for fillies and mares, three and up, earned free entries and start fees in the WinStar Matchmaker Stakes for the one-two finishers, the six-year-old Gimme a Nother and Chad Brown trained Whiskey Decision.
The top two finishers in the Pegasus Stakes, Baby Vino and Schoolyardsuperman, also receive free entry and start fees for the Haskell Stakes. The duo outpaced the strung-out fnishers with Baby Vino winning by 10 ¾ lengths over Schoolyardsuperman, who was another 10 ¾ lengths in front of third place finisher National Charter, another 11 ½ lengths in front of the rest of the field.
Baby Vino now boasts a career record of two wins, two seconds, and one third in six starts, finishing out of the money only once in his first start of the season on Feb. 6 at Monmouth with a ninth-place finish.
The Monmouth Stakes, for 3-year-olds and up going a mile and an eighth on the turf, is a stepping stone for the United Nations, which is contested at a mile and three-eighths on the grass. British-bred ridgling and another Chad Brown trainee Program Trading and stablemate Nebras, another British-bred, each receive free entry and start fees to the United Nations.
Saturday’s victory is the first win for Program Trading since capturing the Grade 1 Old Forester Bourbon Turf Classic Stakes at Churchill Downs on the Kentucky Derby day undercard in 2024. Since then, the horse’s best performance had been a second in the Grade 1 Coolmore Turf Mile Stakes at Keeneland on Oct 4, 2025.
The winner and runner-up, East Avenue and Bishops Bay, in the 79th edition of the Salvator Mile, for three-year olds and up, each receive free entry and start fees to the Monmouth Cup.
Godolphin homebred East Avenue dueled down the stretch in the Mile to win by a nose over Bishops Bay. East Avenue heads to Haskell Day already a graded stakes winner of the Grade 1 Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity and Grade 2 Matt Winn Stakes.
The $1 million Grade 1 NYRA Bets Haskell Stakes is a tradition in summer racing and the Haskell Stakes Day undercard will feature the $500,000 Grade 2 United Nations, the $500,000 Grade 2 Molly Pitcher, the $350,000 Grade 3 Monmouth Cup, and the $300,000 Grade 3 WinStar Matchmaker Stakes.
Last year’s Haskell Stakes Day card produced an all-sources record handle of $21,999,963, marking the third straight year of a record handle. The crowd of 41,876 was the largest since 2015. Monmouth Park’s 81st season runs through Sept. 13.
Return to the June 13 issue of Wire to Wire
