Beauty of the Sea has easy time with Goldwood Stakes

There’s something about the betting on Monmouth Park races that regularly drives favored horses down to insanely low prices. Take Beauty of the Sea in the $100,000 Goldwood Stakes on Saturday. It didn’t take an Einsteinian brain to figure out Beauty of the Sea could be favored in the Goldwood, a turf sprint for older fillies and mares. Win odds of 4-5? That didn’t compute. A bad bet in theory, Beauty of the Sea in practice paid her many backers with a 1 1/4-length Goldwood win under Paco Lopez.

Florida-bred 4-year-old Beauty of the Sea ($3.80) now has won half her 10 starts while going 7-4-2-0 in turf sprints. Trained by Joe Orseno, she’s owned by Ironhorse Racing, who campaigned her sire, the regionally legendary Bucchero. Beauty of the Sea, bred by Shade Tree Thoroughbreds, is out of Belong to Sea, by Poseidon’s Warrior, and, unusual pedigree be damned, she’s proving quite useful.

The diminutive Beauty of the Sea has a big heart. After racing along the rail much of the trip, Lopez in upper stretch tried to guide Beauty of the Sea through a hole between pacesetting Bosserati and pacepressing All That Magic. Nik Juarez on All That Magic had just enough horse to close that gap before All That Magic stopped precipitously, fading to fifth, forcing Lopez to change course and steer his mount back down to the fence. Nonplussed, Beauty of the Sea popped through a hole between Bosserati and the rail and came through to win comfortably.

Queen of the Mud, second choice at 2-1 in a nine-horse field, finished with interest and while unable to quicken with the winner snatched second from Bosserati by a neck. Off a half-mile in 44.76, Beauty of the Sea clocked 1:02.70 for 5 1/2 furlongs over a firm course.

Overbet for sure, but a winner nonetheless.