Randomized may have emerged as trainer Chad Brown’s top 3-year-old dirt filly, but Occult, based on her last two performances, is moving up the depth chart. While Randomized, the Grade 1 Alabama winner, is pointing to next weekend’s Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Santa Anita, Occult looms the horse to beat in Saturday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Mother Goose Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Aqueduct. A once-prestigious Grade 1 event, the Mother Goose – a Grade 2 since 2017 – became lost in a glut of 3-year-old filly stakes offered on the New York Racing Association circuit. Management opted to move it to the fall this year, giving 3-year-old fillies perhaps not ready for Breeders’ Cup a nice alternative. Occult is part of a seven-horse field that includes Xigera, dominant winner of the Seneca Stakes at Churchill Downs, and Defining Purpose, upset winner of the Grade 1 Ashland. The Mother Goose is one of three stakes on an 11-race card that begins at 12:05 p.m. and includes the Grade 2, $300,000 Forty Niner [formerly the Kelso] for males at a mile, and the $135,000 Awad Stakes for 2-year-olds on turf. The $135,000 Pumpkin Pie failed to fill and will be brought back for the Nov. 5 card. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. Occult wintered in New York and won the Busanda Stakes at Aqueduct going the Mother Goose distance of 1 1/8 miles. After a fifth in the Gazelle, Occult finished third in the Grade 1 Acorn – a race in which Randomized was seventh – before a dominant 10 1/4-length win in the Grade 3 Monmouth Oaks. Most recently, in the Grade 1 Cotillion at Parx, Occult rallied from last over a speed-favoring sloppy track to finish third behind loose-on-the-lead winner Ceiling Crusher. Pretty Mischievous, the leader of the 3-year-old filly division, finished second. Brown explained that the strategy in the Cotillion was to follow Pretty Mischievous, but that filly was well off the pace early and Occult was behind her and wound up getting shuffled back to last under Irad Ortiz Jr. “Our plan went up in smoke,” Brown said. “[Pretty Mischievous] found herself too far back and we were committed to following her. She tried hard and came around horses late and was coming good. I felt with a cleaner trip she could have been right there and maybe won.” Occult will break from post 5 under Ortiz in the Mother Goose. Brown also entered Undervalued Asset and Peak Popularity in the Mother Goose, which goes as race 8. Undervalued Asset is stretching out from a fifth-place finish in the Grade 2 Gallant Bloom while Peak Popularity was second in a 1 1/4-mile off-the-turf allowance race at Saratoga on Aug. 25. The connections of Xigera chose the Mother Goose over the Breeders’ Cup Distaff in part because they want to see their filly validate her 6 1/4-length victory in the Seneca Stakes at Churchill on Sept. 23. That race was her first on dirt in more than a year, and it was by far her career-best performance. “I was blown away,” trainer Phil Bauer said of Xigera’s effort in the Seneca. “I certainly hope she can replicate it, but curious if it was an anomaly, one of those things where she freaked. She’s always trained really well on [dirt], anticipated she could handle it.” Julien Leparoux will be in to ride Xigera from post 6. Foggy Night sandwiched wins in the Delaware Oaks and Cathryn Sophia around a second-place finish to Occult in the Monmouth Oaks. Foggy Night finished sixth in the Cotillion in the slop. “It was a tough race. Those were the best 3-year-old fillies in the country,” said trainer Butch Reid, who won Sunday’s off-the-turf Carle Place Stakes at Aqueduct with Ninteyprcentmaddie. “She acquitted herself well and is a top filly, and if things go right she can compete with the best of them.” Defining Purpose upset the Grade 1 Ashland at 20-1 in April and won the Grade 3 Indiana Oaks in July. She comes into this off a third in the Alabama and a fifth in the Cotillion. Julia Shining won the Grade 2 Demoiselle at Aqueduct last December but is 0 for 3 this year. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.