Report: Appleby will run With the Moonlight in New York Stakes
Trainer Charlie Appleby plans to run With the Moonlight in the Grade 1, $600,000 New York on June 9 at Belmont. She was nominated to both that 1 1/4-mile turf race and the Grade 1, $500,000 Just a Game, scheduled for a mile on the Belmont grass on the same day.
Appleby wants to avoid another race against In Italian, according to a report by David Grening of Daily Racing Form. "In Italian beat us fair and square and it would be hard to reverse the form at a mile," Appleby told Grening. Appleby also noted that he prefers the 1 1/4-mile distance of the New York for With the Moonlight.
With the Moonlight is a Godolphin homebred daughter of Frankel out of the Group 2-winning Dubawi mare Sand Vixen. She has a 13: 6-3-1 record with $916,154 in earnings; her wins include a victory in the Saratoga Oaks (G3) last August. She finished second by 3 lengths to In Italian in the Jenny Wiley on April 15 in her last trip to the United States.
With the Moonlight has raced once in the meantime, finishing a well-beaten sixth behind Via Sistina in the Dahlia (G2) at Newmarket on May 7. However, she raced over a soft track for the first time in her career that day. Her form over good and firm going, particularly in the United States and the United Arab Emirates, has been consistently good. She has not been worse than second in three stateside starts, and also won two Group 2 races during the 2023 Dubai carnival.