It was a Gainesway-sired exacta in Saturday’s Chillingworth S. (G3) when TAPIT’s Our Moonlight beating MCKINZIE’s Paradise City.
Paradise City caused trouble for Our Moonlight early in the 6 ½ furlong race coming out of the chute with Our Moonlight having to settle about five lengths off the lead down the backstretch.
That didn’t throw the TAPIT daughter off her game, however, with Our Moonlight extending her stride in the stretch. Paradise City was in front and focused on Thermal in the final furlong, but Our Moonlight was asked for more by jockey Tiago Josue Pereira and she found a huge gear.
Our Moonlight was a neck behind Paradise City at the line, but the early trouble saw Paradise City demoted to second and gave Our Moonlight a first stakes victory.
DISQUALIFICATION!
#4 PARADISE CITY held off a hard-charging #3 OUR MOONLIGHT ($17.40) but was disqualified in the $100,000 Chillingworth Stakes (G3) at @santaanitapark. Tiago Pereira in the irons on the daughter of @gainesway Tapit for Dean Pederson. pic.twitter.com/vEFGIBSfHo
— FanDuel Racing (@FanDuel_Racing) October 3, 2026
Trained by Dean Pederson for T. Lawrence and Ann Jett, Our Moonlight has won three of her 12 races with seven other top three finishes for $217,680 in earnings.
Bred by Stonestreet, Our Moonlight is the second stakes winner out of Grade 3-placed Mannerly alongside Upstanding. In all, four-time winner Mannerly has two winners from three runners and is one of four winners out of her own dam. That mare was another dual stakes producer with Mary Ellise’s other runners including stakes placed Johannesbourbon.
Mary Ellise is a full sister to the stakes winner and Grade 1-placed Spring Awakening, who produced TAPIT’s Grade 3 winner Walk Close with that mare producing two stakes performers herself.
In all, Our Moonlight is one of 17 stakes performers under her first four dams.
It’s been a big Autumn for TAPIT, who also had a TDN ‘Rising Star’ in mid-September and a million-dollar yearling at Keeneland September.