Kimari circles field to win Indian Summer Stakes

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith hopped on a plane bound for Kentucky after guiding Omaha Beach to a victory in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Sprint Championship on Saturday night, getting up in the final jumps to win by a head. He took a leg up on the favored filly Kimari on Sunday evening at Keeneland, resulting in another dramatic late-rallying score. Kimari and Smith went from last to first for a half-length victory in the $200,000 Indian Summer Stakes for 2-year-olds sprinting on the turf, one of the final preps for the newest Breeders' Cup race.

The Indian Summer was added to the stakes schedule for Keeneland's fall meeting last year, as a response to the Breeders' Cup adding the Juvenile Turf Sprint to its program starting in 2018. The Indian Summer offers an automatic berth into the Grade 2, $1 million race, which will be contested at five furlongs, slightly shorter than this prep race, on Friday, Nov. 1, at Santa Anita. Kimari stopped the clock in 1:03.03 for the 5 1/2 furlongs, a stakes record for the young Indian Summer on a turf course officially rated firm. After roughly a month with no signficant rainfall in the Lexington area, showers fell overnight – after two turf course records were set in stakes on Saturday's card – and continued intermittently during Sunday's card.

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Kimari, a Munnings filly who runs for David Mowatt's Ten Broeck Farm, has had an ambitious campaign this season typical of Wesley Ward's globe-trotting turf juveniles. After an eye-popping 15-length debut victory on April 25 on Keeneland's main track, the filly took a tilt at the renowned Royal Ascot meeting in England, finishing a creditable second, beaten by a head by Raffle Prize, in the Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes on soft going. Kimari returned to the races in August at Saratoga, winning the Bolton Landing Stakes by four lengths to stamp herself as the favorite for the Indian Summer.

Smith said that a pre-race talk with Ward gave him confidence even when Kimari, who had scored her previous wins from the lead, was bumped at the start and wound up last of nine, eight lengths behind leader Fast Scene, through the opening quarter in 21.74 seconds.

"[Ward] said, 'Listen, although she's extremely fast, she breaks horrible every time,'" Smith said. "And being in the two-hole, I thought that could be bad. But he said, 'She'll be OK if that happens, don't worry about it, just ride her with confidence.'"

Kimari, still last, fanned into the seven path turning for home as Smith gave her clear room to make her run, and came down the center of the course with a devastating turn of foot as the late closers inhaled longshot Rockcrest, who opened a two-length lead in upper stretch but could not sustain his momentum. Kimari struck the front in the final strides to win by a half-length over second choice Chimney Rock, who rallied from eighth after the quarter-mile.

"[Smith] sat back there and rode a beautiful race, and everything came through today, and we're looking forward to the Breeders' Cup," said Ward, who, shortly before the Indian Summer went off, won the Grade 3 Futurity at Belmont Park with Four Wheel Drive to lock up a spot in the Juvenile Turf Sprint.

After the top two, it was another two lengths back to Axiomo, who nosed out Mystic Lancelot for third. Rockcrest, Old Chestnut, Shippingport, Johnny Unleashed, and the fading Fast Scene completed the order of finish.