SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - A change in tactics resulted in a change of fortune for May Day Ready in Saturday’s Grade 2, $400,000 Lake Placid Stakes at Saratoga.
A filly that has come from off the pace in her previous seven starts, May Day Ready was put on the lead by new rider Jose Ortiz in the Lake Placid. She was able to get a clear lead through moderate fractions, then had enough to repel a late challenge from favored Play With Fire to win the Lake Placid by a half-length.
It was two lengths back to Eponine in third. She was followed in the order of finish by Reigning Flowers, Warming, and Scarlet Sands.
May Day Ready had raced toward the back of the pace in her previous races, but there was no true speed signed onto the Lake Placid and trainer Joe Lee felt his filly would be fresh after having gotten nothing out of the Wonder Again Stakes in June - she was last in a three-horse field in the slop - and running a solid fourth behind Fionn in the Belmont Oaks, run at 1 1/8 miles on July 5.
Lee said he left the tactics up to Ortiz.
Ortiz, riding May Day Ready for the first time, felt there was only one other speed horse in the Lake Placid in Scarlet Sands. But May Day Ready broke sharper than that filly and Ortiz helped her clear the field going into the first turn. May Day Ready had to run a quarter in only 24.51 seconds and a half-mile in 49.16 and had a two-length lead.
“I see a lack of speed in the race, short field, felt like [Scarlet Sands] was the horse that was going to go to the lead, but I allowed her to break and I just took what they gave me,” Ortiz said. “Who doesn’t want to go 49 on the inner track?”
May Day Ready maintained her advantage through six furlongs in 1:13.39 and when Play With Fire came running at her in the lane, she had enough left to hold on.
May Day Ready, a daughter of Tapit owned by KatieRich Stables, covered the mile in 1:35.70 over firm turf and returned $5.70 as the second choice.
“I knew she’d be fresh, I knew if she got a clean break with the horses that were in there, should someone decide not to go, she would be on the lead,” Lee said. “You always hope it works out that way, you always hope they run home. I was glad to see 24-and-change, 49-and-change and just hoping she would run home, to be honest with you.”
Play With Fire was getting a ground-saving trip under Flavien Prat but was shut off by Eponine around the seven-sixteenths pole. She was able to come with a strong inside rally, but one that fell short.
“She made a good run, but on a slow pace,” Prat said. “I should have gotten myself closer.”
Lee said he would like to keep May Day Ready in races at one mile and mentioned the Grade 3, $175,000 Winter Memories at Aqueduct on Sept. 20 and the Grade 2, $400,000 Valley View at Keeneland on Oct. 24 as possible fall targets.
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