9/5 morning line favorite Ironicus is in career-best form having won three of five starts this year with a pair of runner-up finishes. The Shug McGaughey trainee won the Grade 2 Dixie Stakes in May at Pimlico and followed that score with an allowance win before losing by a neck last out in the Grade 2 FourStarDave Handicap. Ironicus has won four of ten starts in his career while finishing off the board just once. Regular rider Javier Castellano retains the mount with the pair set to break from the rail.
At 2/1 Constitution is a short price despite trying turf for the first time in his career. The Todd Pletcher trainee is a multiple graded 1 winner on dirt, winning the 2014 Florida Derby and 2015 Donn Handicap. Constitution has not raced since winning the Donn in February in his only start this year. Pletcher connects at a 32% clip with runners returning from layoffs greater than 180 days and 16% with his first-time turf starters. Joel Rosario will ride breaking from post 2.
Pletcher will also saddle the improving All Included (5/1) who will try stakes foes again after dispatching a high-priced allowance field July 29 at Saratoga. In his prior stakes try, All Included finished fourth in the Grade 3 Poker Stakes in June at Belmont.
The field is set for the $1 million Haskell, where Nyquist will be trying to re-stake his claim as the top three-year-old in the country.
On Sunday at Monmouth Park, the featured race is the $300,000 United Nations Stakes. Scheduled to be run at a mile and three-eighths on the turf, the Grade 1 event has drawn a field of ten colts and geldings.
On Sunday at Monmouth Park, the featured race is the $150,000 Pegasus Stakes, a key prep race for the Haskell Invitational (G1). The Grade 3 event will be contested at a mile and a sixteenth and has drawn a field of seven three-year-olds.
With five grade 1 races and a grade 2, the undercard for the June 11 Belmont stakes could be the best single day of racing on the calendar outside of the Breeders’ Cup.
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