It may have been shorter by two furlongs than the Sept. 16 Jockey Club Oaks Invitational Stakes (G3T).
It was worth $150,000 less and it was run on a soaked turf course as opposed to a firm one back in September.
Yet the $200,000 Sands Point Stakes (G2T) was a virtual replay of the Jockey Club Oaks as once again Godolphin’s Eternal Hope held off the Pennsylvania-bred Neecie Marie to score by a half-length in the Oct. 14 1 1/8-mile turf stakes for 3-year-old fillies on another rainy Saturday at the Belmont at the Big A meet.
ETERNAL HOPE holds on to the win in the Sands Point Stakes (G2) under @JPSPENCER1980! #BelmontAtTheBigA pic.twitter.com/72ODgYrTXB
— NYRA (🌳) (@TheNYRA) October 14, 2023
“She has a big heart. She fights. She knows her business and fights to the end,” said Sophie Chretien, an assistant to trainer Charlie Appleby, of the European filly who made her United States debut in the Jockey Club Oaks. “I was scared of the filly coming on the outside but she responded to beat her.”
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The final margin last month was a slightly shorter neck in the Jockey Club Oaks but for Butch Reid, trainer of Michael Milam’s Neecie Marie, his daughter of Cross Traffic showed an equal amount of competitive spirit Saturday.
“She ran a game race. She’s a hard-trying filly. I was a little concerned with the turf because her only other race on soft turf (a fifth in an allowance race) wasn’t that good,” Reid said. “She finished well and the same horse beat us again. Mr. Appleby is tough to beat but the guys from Philly gave him a run for their money.”
Again.
For Eternal Hope, a homebred daughter of Teofilo (IRE) out of the Dubawi mare Voice of Truth, the wet turf posed no problem after she ran third in the Prix Alex Head (G2) on soft ground Aug. 20 in France.
“She has always showed that she has a good turn of foot,” Chretien said. “She has run on soft ground at Deauville in August and handled it very well.”
Run in the rain on a course labeled yielding, grade 1 winner Leave No Trace set the pace in her turf debut and led by two lengths after a half-mile in :49.59. But after showing some mild resistance on the final turn, she tired in the stretch and finished eighth and last. It marked a third-straight last-place finish following a second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) for a filly who is entered in the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale.
Eternal Hope ($5), the 3-2 favorite, and Neecie Marie moved as a team in the stretch with the Godolphin runner leading by a head at the eighth pole and fending off her rival in 1:53.56.
Ridden by Jamie Spencer, it was the fourth victory in seven starts for the winner of $358,183 who is scheduled to return home to Great Britain next week.
Eternal Hope with Jamie Spencer in the winner’s circle after the Sands Point Stakes at Aqueduct
Neecie Marie was second by 1 3/4 lengths over Joyce Young’s Highland Grace , an American Pharoah filly trained by Barclay Tagg.
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