TWO outstanding females take centre stage in the Oaklawn Park feature the Grade 1 Apple Blossom Handicap tonight (12.09am) with a mouth- watering clash between Breeders’ Cup Distaff winner Monomoy Girl and Preakness winner Swiss Skydiver. It promises to be right up there with some of the finest editions of the race though unfortunately it is not on television here.

Monomoy Girl won five Grade 1s in 2018, including the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, was crowned Champion Three-Year Old Female. She missed the 2019 season recovering from colic surgery but returned as good as ever in 2020, going unbeaten in four starts and repeating her win in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, again being awarded the Champion Older Female Award for 2020. She went through the sales ring for $9.5 million after her Breeders’ Cup win.

Swiss Skydiver had her own coast-to-coast championship history making season in 2020. Racing 10 times, at 10 different race tracks in seven different states.

In July, the filly took on males in the Grade 2 Bluegrass Stakes, finishing second by over three lengths to Art Collector.

Swiss Skydiver then easily won the Grade 1 Alabama Stakes at Saratoga and finished second in the Kentucky Oaks to Shedaresthedevil three weeks later at Churchill Downs.

She then took on males again in the rescheduled Preakness Stakes at Pimlico in October and emerged victorious from a stretch duel with the Kentucky Derby winner Authentic.

In her first clash with Monomoy Girl, she broke poorly in the Distaff and came out of the race with an injury after her seventh-place finish, the worst of her career.

She returned to win the Grade 1 Beholder Mile at Santa Anita on March 13th gaining a 101 Beyer speed figure, winning by and easy two and three quarter lengths. Monomoy Girl reappeared at Oaklawn in a Grade 3 in February and had little difficulty beating her five rivals.

Tactics will be intriguing as Swiss Skydiver can go from the front and may do so from stall 5 while Monomoy Girl often just does enough to pass her rivals and is on the outside of the six runners and giving 2lb to Swiss Skydiver. Swiss Skydiver, at four, might have more improvement than Monomoy Girl at two years older.