Midst Likely Choice in Just Smashing

Monday’s $100,000 Just Smashing Stakes, which will be run as the third event on a 12-race holiday program, brings together six improving 3-year-old fillies at six furlongs.

Trainer Todd Pletcher sends out the likely favorite in Let’s Go Stable’s Midst, who has won three of four lifetime starts. The Closing Argument filly has proved she’s fast, but all her races have come over the PolyTrack surfaces at Keeneland and Woodbine.

Jason Servis will take a shot with the Monmouth-based Island Time, who has won two of four starts for owners Bill and Vicki Poston. The bay daughter of Trippi broke her maiden Feb. 4 at Gulfstream Park, and then won an allowance event by daylight at Tampa Bay. Last out, she ran second in the Sophomore Fillies Stakes at Tampa after encountering a world of trouble.

“I don’t know how she got second,” Servis said. “She was bumped at the break, and then she steadied and dropped out of it on the turn. Somehow, she recovered, kept running and got second.”

Island Time made her career debut at Monmouth last year, finishing fourth in a maiden special.

“She bucked shins that day,” Servis said. “That’s why we put her away and brought her back this winter.”

Island Time has had one breeze over the Monmouth strip this spring, which Servis termed “just okay,” and Elvis Trujillo, who rode her here last year, has the mount.