SerpApi.Org
If the first graded stakes win in trainer Andy Simoff’s 39-year career finally happens on Saturday, he says it would be especially meaningful because it would occur at Monmouth Park.
Simoff sends out Jumping the Gun in the $150,000, Grade 3 Monmouth Oaks on Saturday, looking for a breakthrough victory for both his filly and himself. Having grown up on a 200-acre farm in Bedminster, N.J., Monmouth Park is where he would spend his weekends with his father as a teenager, eventually getting his start at the Jersey Shore track.
“Obviously, the patented answer is that it would mean everything (to win a graded stakes race),” said Simoff. “But the real important part of it for me is that it would be at Monmouth Park.
“I started going to Monmouth Park with my father when I was 13 or 14 almost every Saturday. That’s where it all started for me. That’s where I was introduced to the business. So to have it happen at Monmouth Park would mean a lot personally.”
Simoff, 66, only has a 16-horse stable, with Jumping the Gun the star of it. She has raced in a pair of G2 races and one G3 and finished second all three times. Overall, she has a 3-4-1 record from eight career starts.
The Kentucky-bred daughter of Gun Runner, owned by Imaginary Stables, is already Simoff’s second-highest-earning horse ever with $338,750. Alto Velocita, a horse he claimed for $25,000, banked $365,270 for him, with the Jersey-bred winning the Spruce Fir in 2022 and the Eleven North in 2021, both at Monmouth Park.
Jumping the Gun is scheduled to face nine other 3-year-old fillies in the 1 1/16-mile feature, including My Miss Mo, Ivy Girl and, possibly, the Todd Pletcher-trained Zany.
She was second to the Saffie Joseph-trained My Miss Mo in the G2 Black-Eyed Susan and second to Zany in the G2 Demoiselle Stakes.
In her most recent start, she was second, beaten 1¼ lengths by Luv Your Neighbor in the G3 Delaware Oaks.
Three graded stakes tries, three seconds.
“You do get a little frustrated,” said Simoff. “I thought she had a great trip in the Black-Eyed Susan. She just got beat at the end. In her last start in the Delaware Oaks she had a good trip. She just got beat.
“It’s frustrating. Hopefully, the way she has been training she moves forward off of that.”
In addition to his training duties, Simoff has also overseen Andrew Simoff Horse Transport since 1981. He recently sold the business to Glen Lostrito of Tristar Farms.
“I’m more in an advisory role at this point,” he said. “I’m staying on for a couple of years to help with the transition. I’m still doing all of the day-to-day stuff but I’m slowly weaning off of it and handing it over to him.”
Though he has 365 career wins from 2,044 starters, that first graded stakes win remains elusive – and a goal for Jumping the Gun.
“I’m very happy with her. She has been racing against some good ones,” said Simoff, who now owns a farm in Unionville, Pa. “This business is hard. To have one of the Top 20 3-year-old fillies in the country is really an accomplishment. Even being in the Top 20 for a small stable like mine is almost impossible and definitely improbable. But here we are with her.
“Obviously it would be important to win a graded race. But the real importance for me is that it could happen at Monmouth Park. When I first saw the race, and coming off her last race when she ran a 90 Beyer and a 12 on the Ragozin Sheets, I thought, 'this race is our chance to break through.’ But then the entries came out and I realized she is going to have to move up to win. I thought the race came up very tough. I was hoping some of these horses would go to Saratoga for the (G1) Coaching Club American Oaks (also on Saturday). But that didn’t happen.
“The way she has been training I’m hoping she does make that move forward for this race.”
