OCEANPORT, N.J. * Our Friend Harvey, winner of the Wolf Hill and second in the McSorley last out, tops a competitive field in Sunday’s $60,000 My Frenchman Stakes on turf * Owner-trainer Amy Tarrant will point Kiss the Kid for the Aug. 16 Iselin Stakes, holding out Indy Wind for stakes later in the meet.
The $60,000 My Frenchman, third and last in the series of turf sprint stakes at Monmouth, will be run Sunday, and promises to be a highly competitive event.
“He was kind of blocked with nowhere to go until it was too late,” Hills said of the McSorley effort. “Hopefully we’ll be looping (the field) this time.”
Our Friend Harvey is a fast-closing sprinter, and he needs a seam to run through in the stretch. In the Wolf Hill, jockey Joe Bravo found the seam and ran to daylight as the homebred scored by two lengths. In the McSorley, he was trapped down on the inside and didn’t clear until too late as he was beaten less than a length.
The Florida-bred has a 2-1-0 record in five Monmouth starts, and all three of his good showings have come at five and a half on the grass. Our Friend Harvey is named for Foggle’s friend and attorney who passed away two years ago.
He should have some speed to run at Sunday, with quick sprinters like That’s My Man and John’s Pic among the starters.
Trainer Jason Servis entered a pair of LaMarca Stable horses, with Travolta going only if the race is moved to the main track, and Sinkwich starting no matter what the surface.
Travolta, a $30,000 claim by Servis in February at Gulfstream, won a second-level allowance sprint here last out in a quick 1:10 2/5 for six furlongs.
Servis took Sinkwich for $25,000 at Keeneland on April 24, and had some work to do on the 5-year-old son of Trippi before he got the horse back to the races here on July 6. Sinkwich won a $16,000 claiming event by two lengths in 1:10 1/5.
“That was a huge race for $16,000,” Servis said. “He’s come a long way since then, and I think he’s ready for a shot with better horses.”
Sinkwich was cut out to be a good one, and broke his maiden by nearly 10 lengths at Belmont as a 3-year-old. He has a 4-3-8 record in 30 lifetime starts, and that record includes a turf victory worth noting.
“If you go back far enough,” Servis said, “you’ll see he ran a 91 Beyer (Speed Figure) when he won a turf sprint at Gulfstream.”
That score came on Jan. 6, 2007, when Sinkwich rallied to beat Heroes Reward by a neck in the very fast time of :55 flat for five furlongs.
Sinkwich has not been on turf since he endured a very troubled trip to finish ninth in a sprint at Saratoga last Sept. 1.
TARRANT POINTS KISS THE KID TO ISELIN, WAITS WITH INDY WIND
Owner-trainer Amy Tarrant, who maintained most of the summer that Indy Wind was her candidate for the $300,000 Philip H. Iselin Stakes (G3) here on Aug. 16, has changed horses in mid-month, naming Kiss the Kid for the mile and an eighth event.
Indy Wind, a 6-year-old son of A.P. Indy, won the Frisk Me Now Stakes on June 7, but then was fourth in the Grade 3 Salvator Mile on July 5, and fifth last out in the Skip Away Stakes (the Iselin prep) on July 26.
“I made a mistake in rushing Indy along this summer,” Tarrant said. “He’s going to be retired at the end of the season, and I wanted him to win a graded stakes before he goes to stud. So I felt I had to go in every race
“I ran him back too soon the last time, and he’s never done well with just a few weeks between races. So I’m giving him a break and I’ll hold him out until the Formal Gold Stakes on September 6.”
Tarrant said the new plan calls for Indy Wind to run in the mile and a sixteenth Formal Gold as a prep for the Grade 3 Meadowlands Cup, which will be renewed the first week of October.
“He’s always run well at the Meadowlands,” Tarrant said, “and this will give him a month between the two races.”
Indy Wind has won both his Meadowlands starts on the main track, taking the Alysheba Stakes in both 2006 and 2007.
Kiss the Kid, a 5-year-old son of Lemon Drop Kid, has had an ambitious schedule this season. He was fourth in the Grade 3 Canadian Turf Handicap on Jan. 4, and then ran third in the Grade 1 Donn Handicap on the main track at Gulfstream on Feb. 2. The Kentucky-bred came right back to be third in the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Handicap on March 1.
Tarrant pitched him really high for his next start, spotting him in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont on May 26. Kiss the Kid finished seventh of nine in the one-mile test, traditionally one of the toughest races run in the nation.
Last out, Kiss the Kid returned to the grass to run second in the Bob Harding Stakes here.
“He’s run well on the dirt here, and he trains over it every day,” Tarrant said in explaining her decision to run Kiss the Kid in the Iselin. “And he always tries his best. He runs every race all-out.”
Kiss the Kid won an allowance race on the main track here in 2006, and last year took an off-the-turf allowance run on a muddy track.