Fire Key enters Smart N Fancy in top form

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Last summer, Saratoga was a disaster for Fire Key, who ran three times at the meet and beat a total of one horse. There were excuses.

Fire Key didn’t handle a boggy turf course in the Caress Stakes. She didn’t care for the dirt in an off-the-turf allowance two weeks later. Lastly, she had to avoid a fallen horse and ultimately was the last one across the finish line in the Smart N Fancy Stakes.

This year, Fire Key has had a better summer and enters Saturday's Smart N Fancy off a second-place finish to a loose-on-the-lead Mominou in the Caress Stakes on July 21.

“We thought there might be a little more speed in there, [Mominou] got loose and we couldn’t overcome that, but I thought she ran very well,” trainer Jim Ryerson said.

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Prior to the Caress, Fire Key won an allowance at Belmont and finished second in the Grade 3 Intercontinental, also at Belmont.

Mominou does not return for the Smart N Fancy, but a host of runners from the Caress do. Broadway Run and Morticia, who dead-heated for third, and Miss Gossip, who finished sixth, are back in the Smart N Fancy.

Also entered are Oleksandra and Ruby Notion, the third- and sixth-place finishers from the Grade 3 Royal North Stakes on July 21 at Woodbine. Too Much Tip, a recent allowance winner at Laurel, rounds out the field of turf runners entered.

Ladies Island and Lezendary were entered to run only if the race is transferred to the main track.