Flowers for Lisa has all the speed in Monday allowance

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Jorge Navarro will make no bones about his strategy when he brings Flowers for Lisa back to Saratoga for a second time this summer to take on just four rivals in Monday’s main event, an optional $80,000 claimer at 1 1/8 miles.

Flowers for Lisa shipped here from his Monmouth Park base July 27 to register a wire-to-wire 2 1/2-length victory over slightly lesser optional-claiming competition over a sloppy track. And Navarro is hoping for a similar scenario Monday.

“I usually don’t run my horses back this quickly, but he came out of the race really good, and when they told me it would be a five-horse field I thought it looked like a good opportunity, even though there is Chad Brown and Todd Pletcher and some serious horses in the race,” Navarro said. “It also looks like he’s the only speed in the race. So we’ll just try to get loose and do it again.”

Navarro said he also wouldn’t mind seeing the sky open up Monday, like it did for Flowers for Lisa 17 days earlier.

“There’s no doubt the wet track was an advantage for him last time,” Navarro said. “He’s got four wins and has never been worse than third in six starts in the slop, and once he made the lead nobody went after him, which also helped. I see where there is about a 50 percent chance for rain up there on Monday. I just wish it was 75.”

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Brown will try to catch Flowers for Lisa with Take Your Guns, while Pletcher counters with You’re to Blame and Bonus Points. Secret Passage completes the lineup.

Take Your Guns will put blinkers on for the first time after finishing far back in the Grade 2 Suburban at Belmont Park five weeks earlier. He also will be turning back in distance after going 1 1/2 miles and 1 1/4 miles in his last two starts.

You’re to Blame was scratched from the 1 3/4-mile Birdstone on Aug. 2. He races without blinkers for the first time since his fourth-place finish in the Curlin here last summer. You’re to Blame finished an even third in the State Dinner overnight stakes in his last try and is winless since beating much lesser optional-claiming company this past winter at Gulfstream Park.

Bonus Points, a two-time stakes winner last year at 3, returns from Laurel, where he posted a win and a second in his last two outings.

The stretch-running Secret Passage brings a modest two-race winning streak to Saratoga for trainer Robertino Diodoro. He rallied from more than a dozen lengths off the lead in those victories and will need some help up front Monday.