Bond brings hot hand and hot horse in Prioritize to Woodward

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer James Bond is enjoying his best Saratoga in nearly two decades, so there is no better time to take a swing at a Grade 1 stakes with a longshot. Saturday, Bond will do just that when he sends out Prioritize in the Grade 1, $500,000 Woodward Stakes.

Bond has won 10 races from 34 starters at this meet, his most wins at Saratoga since 2001, when he went 11 for 41. Four of his wins at this meet came with horses returning from an extended layoff owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. Bond was a part or sole owner of four of the 10 winners.

“A lot of homebreds from our breeding program have done very well,” Bond said Monday as he watched a set of unraced 2-year-olds breeze out of the starting gate. “Just some of the horses through the COVID situation we backed off and reprogrammed them. We were hoping Saratoga would be our dream, and it has happened pretty good for us. We’ve been pretty lucky.”

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Prioritize won a second-level allowance race July 25 by a neck over Money Moves, who is scheduled to run in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs. Prioritize is a 5-year-old gelding by Tizway, a colt who won the Grade 1 Whitney here in 2011 for Bond and owner William Clifton, who also owns Prioritize.

Bond raced Prioritize nine straight times on the turf with mixed results and put him on the dirt last December at Aqueduct in a $35,000 claiming race. He won by 1 1/2 lengths and fortunately for Bond and Clifton was not claimed. Prioritize followed that with a narrow defeat in an allowance race in February before the pandemic forced the shutdown of racing.

Prioritize returned in June and finished second to the loose-on-the-lead Its All Relevant in a one-turn 1 1/16-mile allowance at Belmont. In his allowance win here, Prioritize came with a determined run under Eric Cancel to split horses and outfinish Money Moves by a head. He ran 1 1/8 miles in 1:50.08 and earned a career-best 99 Beyer Speed Figure.

This year, the Woodward has been extended from 1 1/8 miles to 1 1/4 miles, which Bond thinks may benefit Prioritize.

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“I think he’s a true mile-and-a-quarter horse,” said Bond, who said Cancel will ride Prioritize. “He’s a grinder, and those are the type that usually get the job done at a mile and a quarter.”

The Woodward is likely to be a five-horse field, with Tacitus, winner of the Suburban Stakes on July 4 at Belmont, the likely favorite. Tacitus, who will be ridden by Jose Ortiz, was assigned high weight of 124 pounds, nine more than Prioritize. Others expected to run are stakes winners Global Campaign (Luis Saez, 122), Spinoff (Irad Ortiz Jr., 118), and Moretti (TBD, 118).

“It’s probably not the strongest race in the world,” Bond said. “This is the time to take a shot.”