Personal Ensign Out to Prove There’s Male Fraud

There’s a slim chance undefeated Personal Ensign will make her debut against males in Belmont Park’s Suburban Handicap July 4.

Trainer Shug McGaughey says he’d prefer to race Ogden Phipps’ 4-year-old filly against females that same day in Monmouth Park’s Molly Pitcher Handicap, but he won’t make up his mind until after weights are assigned for that race.

“If they make her weight too high, I’ll stay in New York for the Suburban,” McGaughey said June 21.

Originally, the trainer was more interested in the Suburban than in the Molly Pitcher. He reconsidered after ‘Ensign’s most recent victory, in the Rare Performe, at Belmont June 11, the same day Winning Colors finished last in the Belmont Stakes.

“I don’t want to run her too quick before the fall,” he said. “We’re mainly pointing for the fall races (New York’s Beldame, Maskette and-or Ruffian and the Breeders’ Cup Distaff) and if she goes too quickly, it may take too much out of her.”

Such obviously was the case for Winning Colors, the 3-year-old filly who won the May 7 Kentucky Derby and finished third in the May 21 Preakness Stakes.

There is extra incentive for McGaughey to be conservative with Personal Ensign. The filly has spent most of her career racing with five screws holding together the two pastern bones she broke in her left hind leg after winning her first two career starts in 1986.

Since the surgery, Personal Ensign has gone 6 for 6 and increased her career earnings to $711,060.

McGaughey says racing poses no danger to the hindleg, but he does not want to risk further trauma to her. Still, he said, “if she goes on and dominates fillies the way she has been, maybe we ought to try her against the colts.”