Saratoga: Focus turns to Jockey Club Gold Cup for Proxy

After a gate-to-wire score in Saturday’s Grade 3 Monmouth Cup, Godolphin’s Proxy will shift his focus to the $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup (G1) on Sept. 2 going 1 1/4 miles at Saratoga.

The race is a win-and-you’re-in qualifier for the Breeders’ Cup Classic in November at Santa Anita.

The 5-year-old Tapit bay emerged from only three weeks of rest to capture the 1 1/8-mile Monmouth Cup at its namesake Jersey Shore oval, setting a moderate pace down the backstretch with Calibrate applying pressure nearing the far turn and Whelen Springs joining the fray approaching the quarter pole. But Proxy kicked clear of them both to win by 2 1/2 lengths while securing a 96 Beyer Speed Figure.

The winning effort followed a disappointing eighth in the Stephen Foster (G1) on July 1 at Ellis Park, an effort that trainer Michael Stidham said was because of a speed-favoring track.

“I knew going into the Stephen Foster that the track was a conveyer belt for speed. We drew the one-hole with tons of speed outside of us,” Stidham said. “We knew we were going to get a ton of dirt in our face and on that track, it was just impossible to make up any ground. That’s exactly what happened. We got checked around the first turn, got ourselves way back and were unable to make up any ground, so it was a race we just draw a line through.”

Proxy has now won three graded stakes over as many racetracks, capturing the Clark (G1) in November at Churchill Downs before narrowly defeating Last Samurai in the Oaklawn Handicap (G2) in April. During his sophomore season, he ran against Mandaloun and Midnight Bourbon in the Fair Grounds prep series for the Kentucky Derby, including runner-up finishes in the Lecomte (G3) and Risen Star (G2). Stidham opted to put Proxy on the shelf after that spring and brought him back for a 4-year-old season, which resulted in a 6: 2-2-2 record.

“If you go back to his 3-year-old year, where we were running in some of the Derby preps, I made comments that I didn’t think he was quite where he needed to be to keep pushing forward to try to make the Derby,” Stidham recalled. “So we backed off, gave him time, brought him back for his 4-year-old year, which was decent. Now, he seems to really be putting things together as a 5-year-old.”

Stidham said the Monmouth Cup was not initially the plan, but he didn’t want to run Proxy in a race such as the Jockey Club Gold Cup from a two-month respite.

“Now, we have almost five weeks going into the Jockey Club Gold Cup with a horse coming off a nice win,” Stidham said. “We wanted to get his confidence back up. He’s doing well. He came out of that race in good shape. Now our focus is the Jockey Club Gold Cup and hoping he runs well there, and we can start thinking about Breeders’ Cup Classic.”

The Jockey Club Gold Cup will be Proxy’s first 10-furlong start since finishing a late-closing second to Stiletto Boy in the Santa Anita Handicap (G1) in March.

With an 18: 6-6-2 record, Proxy boasts earnings of $2,024,970. A Kentucky homebred, Proxy is out of the dual Grade 1-winning millionaire Include mare Panty Raid. He is a half-sister to Micheline, a graded-stakes winner on the grass.