Close Hatches Upsets the Mother Goose

The was no fairy tale ending for Dreaming of Julia in the Mother Goose at Belmont Park. Sent off at 1-5, the Stonestreet Farms filly struggled throughout the race. She did manage to lug up for second place, 7¼ lengths behind the winner Close Hatches, saving the $689,000 that was bet to show by the bridge jumpers.

 

Close Hatches was given a perfect ride by Joel Rosario. She sat patiently in fourth place for the first half-mile of the race. In the next quarter of a mile, Rosario asked the Juddmonte Farms filly to run and she jumped to a 1½ length lead. Trainer Bill Mott described the move, “By the time we got to the middle of the turn, it looked like we got first run on [Dreaming of Julia]. At the three-eighths pole, we were breezing to the lead. It looked pretty good from here.”

 

This was the second win in the Mother Goose for Mott. He had previously won the race with Ajina in 1997.

 

Dreaming of Julia’s trainer Todd Pletcher was obviously disappointed with the result, “She was never herself, it didn’t look like. I don’t know if she was kind of stuck in between horses, never really found a seam. I thought she ran very gutsy to get up for second when clearly she didn’t run her race.”

 

Close Hatches entered the Mother Goose with three wins and a second place out of five career starts. She won her first three races including the Gazelle (G2). Then came a very disappointing seventh place finish in the Kentucky Oaks. When Mott was asked if he had figured out what happened in that race, he hesitated for a while and jokingly said, “Sh*t happens, I guess. I mean she had a dull day.”

 

Close Hatches who was the 4.3-1 second betting choice, paid $10.60 to win. The mile and a sixteenth race, which is contested around one turn, went in :23.32, :46.27, 1:09.98, 1:34.92, with a final time of 1:41.36.

 

Mott talked about what might be next for his filly, “Now, she’s got the Grade 1. There’s no gun at our head to do anything. We’ll wait until she’s ready again. Right now, we’ll try to keep her with her own age group, I suppose. [The Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks on July 20 at Saratoga Race Course] is something to consider. If she’s doing as well as she was going into today, we’ll have to give it strong consideration.”