Amelia McGuirk had the ride of a lifetime on Saturday, April 13, when she scored a victory aboard Moonsox in the $30,000 My Lady’s Manor in her first sanctioned start. Trained by Kevin Boniface, Nelson & Traveler Stable’s Moonsox strode away to a 1 3/4-length victory in the kickoff race to the Maryland timber triple in Monkton.
Straight to It, the 2012 New Jersey Hunt Cup winner owned by Sheila J. Williams and Andre Brewster, finished second. Bon Caddo, the 2011 timber champion who had won the three-mile timber classic that year for Merriefield Farm, took third. Kinross Farm’s Sand Box Rules finished fourth, and Eye Said Scat Cat collected fifth money.
Moonsox ran the three miles in 6:53 on turf rated as good. Sixth in last year’s My Lady’s Manor, Moonsox had finished second in the New Jersey Hunt Cup on Oct. 20 at Far Hills before a fall in the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup.
The My Lady’s Manor field was tightly bunched from the start, with four lengths separating the entire field in a deliberately run race. Michael T. Wharton’s Grinding Speed, the sixth starter, was on the lead when he fell at the second to last fence, and Moonsox took over to claim his first stakes win over timber fences.
Never out of the money in his 2011 starts, the seven-year-old Mohave Moon gelding hit the board only in the New Jersey Hunt Cup last year.