Majestic River Primed to Step Up in Lighthouse

This Saturday Monmouth Park will host the $70,000 Lighthouse Stakes for fillies and mares, and the Todd Pletcher trained Majestic River is primed to step up and claim her first stakes victory. In her last outing, Majestic River trounced the competition, crossing the wire by a chasm of seven and a quarter lengths ahead of the field in an optional claiming event on May 25 in Oceanport.

“It’s a step up, but she’s training very well here,” said Anthony Sciametta, Pletcher’s Monmouth Park assistant. “She likes the track. She ran a big race last time. She hasn’t missed a beat since the race, she’s doing well.”

In preparation for her first stakes start, Majestic River worked twice on the Monmouth track. First on June 15 where she breezed four furlongs in :49 2/5, and again at the same distance on June 22, where she went :48 1/5, the ninth best of 100 that day.

A 4-year-old filly by A.P. Indy, out of the Alphabet Soup mare Tempus Fugit, Majestic River is part of the field of seven who will travel a mile and a sixteenth along Monmouth’s main track in search of a stakes win on Saturday. Among the competition Saturday are stakes winners South Andros and Firenze Feeling. Sciametta believes that his horse’s versatility will help her in the tougher stakes contest.

“She can do either or,” Sciametta said. “Last time we told Eddie (jockey Castro) to let her run away from there and if a horse went to sit off. That’s exactly what happened and it worked out perfectly.”

Racing under the colors of Bolton Lipman & Natrona Racing, Majestic River breaks from post-5 with returning jockey Eddie Castro aboard in race 11 Saturday, the feature on the 12-race card.