Monomoy Girl is such a wonderful filly that not even a terrible post could ruin her chances in the Kentucky Oaks.

Monomoy Girl was last into the starting gate, breaking from post 14, but first under the wire, as jockey Florent Geroux managed to work out a trip despite the lousy draw.

Monomoy Girl won by a half-length over Wonder Gadot, with 2-1 favorite Midnight Bisou finishing third, about four lengths farther back, in the Grade 1, $1 million Oaks.

Jockey John Velazquez, riding Wonder Gadot, claimed foul alleging interference past the eighth pole, but the stewards disallowed the claim.

Owned by a partnership, Monomoy Girl was one of three fillies in the race trained by Brad Cox, who grew up blocks from Churchill Downs and dreamed of training horses here as a kid. Monomoy Girl had given Cox his first Grade 1 win in the Ashland Stakes last month at Keeneland, and on Friday she provided him with the biggest victory of his career.

Geroux asked Monomoy Girl for speed out of the gate, slapping her with his crop several times to get some sort of position into the first turn. The pair got up into the three path, pressing the pace through an opening quarter mile in 23.48 set by Take Charge Paula, Sassy Siena nipping at her heels down at the fence.

The half went in 47.70 seconds, a solid pace, and even before the three-furlong pole, midway around the far turn, Geroux decided to make his move. Monomoy Girl left the other pace behind, opening a big lead at the quarter pole, but there came Wonder Gadot to make a race of it. Wonder Gadot, rallying wide around the far turn, engaged Monomoy Girl at about the three-sixteenths pole, got on even terms in mid-stretch, but Monomoy Girl, who has shied from the whip in the past, found more and pushed clear in the final half-furlong.

The winner was timed in 1:49.13 for 1 1/8 miles on a fast track and paid $7.20 to win. Midnight Bisou, the Santa Anita Oaks winner who raced in traffic many lengths behind the leaders, tried to get involved in upper stretch, but she could not match the pace of the top two.

Monomoy Girl struggled with the concept of breaking from the starting gate as an unraced 2-year-old, and Cox sent her from Ellis Park, where she had trained, to make her debut at Indiana Grand. Monomoy Girl won first time out, and now has won six of seven starts, her only defeat coming here last fall in the Golden Rod Stakes when Road to Victory beat her by a neck.

A $100,000 yearling purchase, Monomoy Girl is by Tapizar and out of the Henny Hughes mare Drumette.