LEXINGTON, Ky. – Second in the 2023 Phoenix Stakes, second in the 2024 Phoenix Stakes, Nakatomi was second to none in the 2025 Phoenix Stakes on Friday at Keeneland.
It did take some work to avoid a third straight second. Nakatomi, rallying from a last over a main track favoring off-the-pace runners on opening day of the fall meet, looked poised to blow past Durante at the furlong grounds, but Durante, who had inherited the lead from a fading Skelly, going a couple of lengths clear, did not go down without a fight. He came briefly into Nakatomi’s path before getting straight again, but by that point Nakatomi and jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. had Durante measured, Nakatomi pushing out to a neck victory.
Not only did Nakatomi break through in the Phoenix, so did his trainer, Wesley Ward, whose home base is a farm and training area across the street from Keeneland.
“It’s a race I’ve always wanted to win,” Ward said.
Nakatomi won for the first time since July 2024. This past April, he took a narrow defeat to a huge longshot in the $2 million Dubai Golden Shaheen, a race that Nakatomi’s Dubai-based part owner, Fitriana Hay, hoped to win when she bought into Nakatomi in 2023. Nakatomi returned to action in June at Saratoga, finishing fifth in the True North and third in the Forego, decent performances, perhaps not his best.
“It can take awhile for them to get over that trip to Dubai,” Ward said.
A freshening, a return to Keeneland, and Nakatomi was ready to roll – though victory seemed far from assured in the early stages.
None of the six runners in the six-furlong Phoenix had a worse trip than Skelly, a need-the-lead speedball who blew the break, then came roaring up the fence a million miles an hour in a mad dash to make the front. He did, pushing through inside Durante, getting the first quarter-mile in 22.19. Meanwhile, Nakatomi had fallen out the back door: At the first call, he trailed by nearly 10 lengths.
“I didn’t want to use him too much out there, but to be honest they got away from me a little bit,” Ortiz said. “After that, I asked him a little bit and he was going forward, so I was happy.”
Skelly, spent from overexertion, chucked it at the top of the stretch, leaving the race, for a few strides, to Durante. Durante in June won the Aristides at Churchill at odds of 33-1. At the three-sixteenths marker Friday, he looked poised for a 17-1 upset. Asked if he thought his horse was home, owner-trainer David Jacobson said he did.
But Ortiz, his mount improving steadily, snuck right onto the Durante’s tail, getting towed toward the eighth pole, biding his time. Ward said Nakatomi in early days had sometime been ridden as a one-run closer, and Ortiz said had circumstances allowed, that was the kind of trip he hoped to get at Saratoga this summer. This time, he got it and it worked. Ortiz produced Nakatomi late, and Nakatomi produced an overdue victory in the Grade 2, $400,000 Phoenix.
Three lengths separated Durante and the Ward-trained third-place finisher, Whatchatalkinabout. Ward, rightfully so, bemoaned the tough trip Whatchatalkinabout suffered. Taken a little out of position when Skelly roared past early, Whatchatalkinabout had run into the homestretch but found his path blocked at every turn. Here Mi Song finished fourth, second choice World Record checked in a flat fifth, and Skelly brought up the rear. Nakatomi was timed in 1:09.93 over a fast track that wasn’t producing quick clockings and paid $5.20 as the favorite.
Owned also by Qatar Racing, 6-year-old Nakatomi is by Firing Line out of Applelicious, by Flatter. The horse was bred in Kentucky by Arnold Zetcher and Crestwood Farm.
The Phoenix is part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series and Nakatomi earned automatic fees-paid entry into the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, a race in which he finished sixth last year and third in 2023. Ward said Nakatomi is headed to California, and that he would like to run Whatchatalkinabout in the Sprint, too, if the horse can make the field. Jacobson plans to run Banishing in the Sprint and said he was disinclined to point Durante to that race.
The race Friday was the Phoenix, and Nakatomi was second no more.
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