Kimari tackles Prioress Stakes in return from Ascot trip

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Saturday’s $200,000 Prioress at Saratoga will feature the top three finishers from the Grade 3 Victory Ride won by Frank’s Rockette earlier this summer at Belmont Park. But the horse to beat in the Grade 2 Prioress for 3-year-old fillies could be Kimari, who returns to the main track to make her first start since finishing a hard-luck second in the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot.

Kimari could not quite overcome a slow start when falling 1 1/2 lengths short of catching gate-to-wire winner Golden Horde in the six-furlong Commonwealth Cup, decided over a good turf course on June 19. She has been stabled at Keeneland since returning to the United States and has posted bullet five-furlong works over the main track twice within the past three weeks.

“She got left at the gate and it was tough to make up the ground,” trainer Wesley Ward said in reference to the Commonwealth Cup. “Take nothing away from the winner, but if our filly had broken better she’d had been a lot closer for sure. She’s a real big filly, and we’ve been trying to space things out a little bit. She’s won on all surfaces, although I feel she’s a bit better on dirt, actually. She’s really come into her own since returning from England, has had some really big works lately on the dirt, and I have a lot of confidence in her coming into this race.”

Kimari, who defeated Frank’s Rockette by 1 3/4 lengths making her 3-year-old debut last spring in the Purple Martin at Oaklawn Park, will break from the rail in the Prioress with Irad Ortiz Jr. aboard.

Frank’s Rockette came within .01 of a second of Belmont’s 6 1/2-furlong course record of 1:14.46 when leading at every call to register a head decision over Reagan’s Edge in the Victory Ride. The win was her second straight and third in four starts this season, with her lone loss to Kimari in the Purple Martin over a sloppy track at Oaklawn.

“She didn’t get away as well as we thought she would, but she did show some fight,” trainer Bill Mott said of Frank’s Rockette’s effort in the Victory Ride. “And I think she can be effective off the pace if she has to be.”

Reagan’s Edge also has been idle since her huge performance in the Victory Ride, which came in only her fourth start and first against stakes company. Trained by Cherie DeVaux, Reagan’s Edge was first to show in front after the break, relinquished the advantage to Frank’s Rockette down the backstretch, and dropped about a length behind near midstretch only to surge again and miss by a head.

Center Aisle was hung three wide prompting the leaders in the Victory Ride and lacked the necessary response through the final sixteenth, finishing three-quarters of a length behind the winner. She, too, has not started in the interim and will race with blinkers for the first time Saturday.

“She’s been running well, just seems to maybe be a little even through the lane,” trainer Chad Brown said. “Hopefully [blinkers] will focus her up a little bit. She seems to have trained well in them.”

Brown also will start Secondary Market. Completing the field are Up in Smoke, a distant fourth in the Victory Ride; stakes winner Sound Machine; Maryland invader Hello Beautiful; and Purrfectly Claire.

– additional reporting by David Grening