Shifman: Midnight Bisou earns her NTRA Top Thoroughbred Poll spot

The NTRA Top 10 Thoroughbred Poll continues to make the transition from City of Light, Battle of Midway and Accelerate to the horses aiming to campaign the rest of this year. In this week's consensus poll, City of Light still received 28 first-place votes but dropped to third place overall. The ill-fated Battle of Midway has dropped out of the Top 10, while Accelerate is hanging around in a tie for ninth.

With 11 first-place votes, Monomoy Girl took hold of the top spot with the highest total points. I have the utmost respect for last year’s champion, but it’s March, and I am not inclined to put an un-raced horse in that high of a position. For now, I slotted her in seventh behind horses who have earned their spots by racing in 2019.

Among them is Midnight Bisou, whose victory Saturday in the Azeri Stakes (G2) at Oaklawn Park against a strong field that included 2018 graded stakes winners Elate and Eskimo Kisses and the Champion Female Sprinter Shamrock Rose earned my sixth-place vote. Midnight Bisou is a rare runner with two graded stakes victories already this year, with the Azeri adding to her Houston Ladies Classic (G3) score in January.

Midnight Bisou's 99 Beyer Speed Figure marked the second highest of the ultra consistent runner's career. The 4-year-old has set the bar high for Monomoy Girl when she makes her 2019 debut, which is expected to be on April 14 in the Apple Blossom (G1) at Oaklawn Park.

Losses in both divisions of the Rebel Stakes (G2) by previously unbeaten Bob Baffert trainees Game Winner and Improbable prompted me to remove them from the overall Top 10, leaving War of Will as my only sophomore ranked alongside of the older horses. With his two graded stakes wins at the Fair Grounds, the Mark Casse runner sits on top of the Kentucky Derby points standings heading into Saturday's Louisiana Derby (G2).