Mohaymen's stablemate, Shagaf won the Gotham
Shagaf, a stablemate of Mohaymen but trained by Chad Brown wins the Gotham over a tiring Aqueduct dirt surface. In a previous stakes race at the same distance, Mei Ling, a 4 year old filly trained by Todd Pletcher won the race after "walking the dog" on the early fractions ( 48 for 4F and 112.4 for 6 F) and stopping the tele-timer in 1:45.
In the Gotham, Laoban, a West coast horse, carved out a much quicker fractions of 47 for 4F and 111.3 for 6 F before he got overtaken at the finish line by Shagaf. The closing fraction of 34.0 by Shagaf will be a huge question mark going added distance in the near Derby preps, even if it was over a tiring track. The next race for Shagaf will be the Wood Memorial at the same track.
So far, it looks like Mohaymen, Greenpointcrusader, and Nyquist are the top contenders for the 2016 Kentucky Derby. Nyquist, trained by Doug O'Neil seems to be prepping light for his Derby quest, but O'Neil has won a Derby previously with I'll Have Another, so I won't question his choice of prep races.
Bigger and more important Derby prep races are ahead. Two months to go until the "Big Dance."
