Team Valor International and Green Lantern Stable’s Gypsy’s Warning, making her United States debut, overcame a wide trip throughout to get up in the final stride for a nose victory in the Grade 3 Eatontown Handicap at Monmouth Park today going 1 1/16 miles on turf.

Racing on an inside ribbon of turf on a course with tight turns and a short stretch, Gypsy’s Warning took all the worst of it from her outside draw in a field that originally drew 7 entrants but scratched down to 5 at post time.

Just inside the South African import was Maram, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Filly Turf heroine that was making her 4-year-old debut, for which she was dispatched ad the 7 to 5 favorite by the Memorial Holiday crowd at the Jersey Shore.

Gypsy’s Warning broke to her right, but broke running, and jockey Jose Valdivia was unable to tuck her inside going around the first turn, which she took in the 3 patch all the way around. Eye of Taurus, the 8 to 5 second choice and the lone speed in the starting line up, set the pace from her number 1 post position, with Maram sitting right outside of her, and Gypsy’s Warning behind Maram.

Because the pace was unbelievably slow—fractions were :24.8 and 1:12.86—the field was fairly well bunched, so Gypsy’s Warning took the 3 path all the way around the turn as well. As the field swung off the final bend, Maram began her rally in earnest to take the lead just inside the furlong marker and had a about a l ½-length lead over Gypsy’s Warning.

With about 125 yards remaining, Gypsy’s Warning and Maram were locked in battle, with the Team Valor colorbearer wearing down the favorite to prevail in the very last stride. The winner was dismissed at odds of 7 to1 and was the longest shot in the race.

Final time of 1:41 3/5 was excellent considering the lack of pace and the tactics employed by the riders. Gypsy’s Warning went her final sixteenth in :05 3/5 and must have come her final quarter-mile in 22 seconds. The winner gave the favorite 1 pound under a load of 117 pounds.

Maram, trained in New York by former Bobby Frankel assistant Chad Brown, had won 4 of 6 career outings, her lone non-productive effort coming in her final outing at 3, when she took on older fillies and mares in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf, in which she finished a respectable sixth, beaten only 3 lengths.

Gypsy’s Warning, bought after her season at 2 in South Africa and trained by veteran Ormond Ferraris, had 3 wins and 3 thirds in South Africa for her owners, winning the Grade 1 South African Fillies Classic over 9 furlongs.

In her career, the consistent mare has achieved a record of 6 wins and 5 thirds in her 12 outings, winning a pair of Grade 1 races and placing third in a pair of Grade 1 races, for earnings of more than $230,000.

Graham Motion (left) has trained Gypsy’s Warning since she arrived at his Palm Meadows barn last winter. “He’s done a super job with her,” noted Barry Irwin. “She is not an easy character to be around and she had a mind of her own.

“Fact is, we are lucky she is even healthy enough to still be in training, because in her first stop off with a trainer in the United States, she flipped over while being hosed off on a wash rack. She came away with scrapes on all four ankles, one of which was so severe that her attending veterinarian Dr. Gary Priest of Kentucky feared that her career had been compromised. “While trying to stand up, she suffered an asphalt burn on the ligament under an ankle and the tissue was literally burned. But Gary and the folks at the Kentucky Equine Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Center (KESMARC) did a sensational job in bringing her back to full health. “Todd Quast at Goldmark Farm was extremely patient with her while she was training for him on his Safe T Track in Ocala and got her over the hump of trusting her legs again.”