Mighty Maycocks!

Godolphin's wonderful Maycocks Bay (pictured above) stunned the Woodbine crowd this weekend with a scintillating front-running performance to win the $175,000 G2 Eclipse Stakes.

Given a pitch-perfect ride by rising star Sofia Vives, Maycocks Bay was sent quickly into the lead where the pair quickly assumed an authorative advantage over the rest of the field. And there they remained, kicking on at the top of the stretch to pass the post a comfortable two lengths ahead of the runner up.

Maycocks Bay has always shown a high level of form. last year, for example, he was a really good third in the G3 Mineshaft Stakes at Fair Grounds. He didn't run again after March last year, but returned this year with nice turns in a couple tough allowance races at Fair Grounds and Keeneland before this star-making turn in the Eclipse.

Stidham-assistant Parker Hendricks said after the race that the Woodbine all-weather track was expected to play to the horse's strengths.

‘We’re fortunate enough, this horse has been based down at Fair Hill Training Center for the last six or eight weeks, and he has galloped on it and worked on it, and he had a really nice breeze over the surface about two weeks ago, his second to last work, so we were pretty confident he would handle the surface," he said.

“He’s a very exuberant horse,” Hendriks added, of the five-year-old son of Speightstown. “I actually ride him myself. He is very fast, so he doesn’t really feel like he’s going that fast.”

The win also has a nice sense of circularity to it. Stidham trained the dam (Hallie Belle) to a couple nice stakes victories back in 2017 and 2018.