Like so many races in the older filly and mare turf-route division, the Grade 3, $150,000 Eatontown at Monmouth Park on Saturday ended in a Chad Brown-trained exacta. Tax Implications was first across the wire, while runner-up Maman Joon turned in what might have been the superior performance. Tax Implications pulled a decent stalking trip under Flavien Prat and got home by three-quarters of a length in the 1 1/16-mile Eatontown. Coasting along two paths off the rail in fourth while covered up by pacepressing Ocean Club, Tax Implications would have been getting a perfect trip had Spirit and Glory not been controlling a walking pace. Spirit and Glory made an easy lead and went 25.74 and 51.16, a slow enough pace that the mare ought to have won. She did not. Spirit and Glory came under attack at the three-sixteenths pole, carrying a tenuous lead to the stretch call before Tax Implications overwhelmed her in the final furlong. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. With such a dawdling pace, all seven runners in the Eatontown cracked 30 seconds for their final 2 1/2 furlongs, Tax Implications coming home in a robust 28.74. Co-third choice at 7-2, Tax Implications was timed in 1:43.98 over a firm course and paid $9.60. One for eight in her career, the Eatontown was a meaningful win for Tax Implications, her first stakes score coming in a graded race. Klaravich Stables owns Tax Implications, a 4-year-old England-bred daughter of Mehmas and the Medaglia d’Oro mare Country Madam. Maman Joon, another 4-year-old overseas import, has to be the horse to watch coming out of the Eatontown. Jumping into a Grade 3 after a first-level allowance win in May and a maiden victory in April, Maman Joon settled last of seven around the first turn, down the backstretch, and into the far turn before making her move – and it was quite a move. Maman Joon blasted her last 2 1/2 furlongs in 27.91 and would have won the Eatontown in a few more strides. Spirit and Glory saved third, with favored Sacred Wish, who should have been on the lead from post 1 considering the slow pace, checking in fourth. The Monmouth On paper, the Grade 3, $150,000 Monmouth Stakes looked like an inscrutable race, most of the entrants’ baseline performances falling into a narrow band. The paper did not lie. Running Bee and Fort Washington finished in a dead heat for the win as just 1 3/4 lengths separated the first eight across the line in the Monmouth, a 1 1/8-mile grass race for older horses. In live action, it looked like Fort Action had taken the measure of Running Bee, who was rallying inside him through the final furlong of the Monmouth, but Running Bee got a favorable head bob that was good for a tie. A neck behind the two winners came Tawny Port, who came between horses at the half-mile pole to dispute the pace and nearly held on. A neck behind him was Siege of Boston, the 8-5 favorite who briefly loomed a winner making an inside run at the furlong grounds before going slightly flat in the final stages. Fort Washington, trained by Shug McGaughey for Magic Cap Stables, won the Tale of the Cat Stakes two summers ago at Monmouth, but since that win he’d gone 1-11, and Fort Washington came into the Monmouth Stakes following a dull showing in a Churchill Downs allowance race, his first start after a winter break. Those circumstances yielded a ridiculously high price, 35-1, Fort Washington paying $31.40 while clocking 1:48.70 over a firm course. Fort Washington, a 5-year-old horse, is by War Front out of Azaelia, by Turtle Bowl. Running Bee, fourth choice at 9-2, stalked the pace while racing just in front of Fort Washington, and while he rebounded from a sub-par showing over soft ground at Pimlico in the Dinner Party Stakes last month, Running Bee ($6.20) was fortunate to come away with a tie. Chad Brown trains Running Bee, a 5-year-old son of English Channel and Our Joy, by El Prado, for Calumet Farm. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.