By Dick Jerardi
There are still three months left in the year, but it’s hard to imagine that More Than Grace won’t be the 2026 Parx Horse of the Year. After yet another blowout win Monday, the 4-year-old filly has won seven straight for trainer Michael Pino and owner Just In Time Racing LLC (Tony Como).
More Than Grace has actually finished first in eight straight races, but, after winning a maiden claimer on Jan. 13, the day she was claimed, she was later disqualified from purse money. That would appear to be the only way to keep her from winning in 2026.
And the filly does not just win. She wins big. None of the finishes has been close. She has won those seven races by a combined 47 lengths. She usually goes right to the front and gives the other horses no chance. But, in the two races she did not get the lead right out of the gate, she blew the race open soon enough and romped home.
Monday’s race was typical. It appeared as if the very speedy Divine Intentions, starting just to More Than Grace’s inside, might be faster out of the gate. Appearances were deceiving. More Than Grace got a clear lead instantly, led by 7 lengths at the eighth pole and cruised home 4 1/2 lengths clear in the 6-furlong race. Each of her wins has been at 6 furlongs or 6 1/2 furlongs.
Parx’s leading jockey Mychel Sanchez has ridden her throughout the winning streak.
“She’s special,” he said after the latest win. “She makes my job easier. She’s class; has a very good mind. She’s good on the lead, off the pace, it’s just fun to be on top of her.”
Was it as easy as it looked?
“Yes,” the jockey said.
Pino has had some very nice horses in his career. Has he ever had one win seven straight?
“I might have, but not like this,” Pino said, referring to the margins.
What did he think he was getting when he claimed her?
“I was hoping I would get a $25,000 claimer,” Pino said. “When we got her in the barn, I said, ‘I don’t even want to run her for ($40,000)…She just started coming around and acting like a good horse.”
Pino told Sanchez before Monday’s tour de force that there was other speed in the race. The jockey told the trainer not to worry.
More Than Grace still has some conditions left, but trainer and jockey both think she is capable of competing in stakes down the road. For now, she just keeps running in great spots (she has been 2-5, 3-5, 1-5, 1-10, 1-5 and 3-10 her last six races) and winning easily.
More Than Grace is by top sire More Than Ready out of Trace of Grace, a terrific mare trained by Bernie Houghton. More Than Grace is her first foal. She is at the Houghtons’ Sylmar Farm in Christiana, Pa.
Houghton was at Parx Monday to watch More Than Grace and proudly pointed out that her mother won the Plum Pretty at Parx twice (2016, 2019) in a 48-race career that included earnings of $489,652. Now, she is responsible for all those More Than Grace Pennsylvania breeding award checks appearing in the mail.
More Than Grace was originally sold as Hip 1955 for $80,000 at the 2023 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. She was resold the following March as Hip 773 at the OBS March sale for $180,000.
More Than Ready has had 2,603 foals. They have won $138 million. Roy H won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint in 2017 and 2018. Rushing Fall and Uni combined to win 10 Grade I races. But none of them won seven straight like More Than Grace.
The biggest winners in the More Than Grace sweepstakes have been Pino and Como. Since they put up just $20,000 to claim her, More Than Grace has won $193,440. That might qualify as the claim of the year around here too.
The only issue came after her July 1 win.
“She got real sick,” Pino said. “She had pneumonia almost. We were treating her. It was a very nervous time, heavy antibiotics.”
She finally made it back to the races on August 31, Pino was not sure how she would run. She won by 9 lengths, the biggest margin during the streak.
More Than Grace has run in every month this year but February. She has October, November and December to see if she can make it 10 in a row.
