Love Reigns the one to catch in Bolton Landing Stakes

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – There are 10 2-year-old fillies entered in Sunday’s $150,000 Bolton Landing Stakes at Saratoga, but the main focus will be on only one, Love Reigns, who figures to be a heavy favorite coming out of her fourth-place finish in the Group 2 Queen Mary at Royal Ascot late this spring. The Bolton Landing will be decided at 5 1/2 furlongs on turf.

Love Reigns showed off her abundant speed and talent right from the start, drawing off to a 9 3/4-length maiden win when debuting on turf April 29 at Keeneland. The performance earned her a trip to Royal Ascot for the Queen Mary, where she led for four furlongs before faltering to finish three lengths behind the highly touted Dramatised, who turned in an eye-catching performance in victory.

“She got a little sick after her first race and it took a little while to get her working again, and she didn’t work quite as well before we took her over there [as she did] prior to her first start,” trainer Wesley Ward recalled. “But I still thought she ran a very nice race. The filly who won is very special.”

Ward said Love Reigns couldn’t be doing better preparing for her return.

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“She’s got no issues at all coming into this start and she’s been working great since she got here last month,” Ward said.

Love Reigns is one of two fillies Ward will start in the Bolton Landing, along with No Kay Never, who went to Horseshoe Indianapolis to capture her debut by four lengths in wire-to-wire fashion as the 6-5 favorite on the grass May 30.

“We’re going to take No Kay Never back and let her make one run on Sunday, so one of mine doesn’t interfere with the other. That’s already happened to us once here this meet,” Ward said, referring to a maiden race where his two starters dueled head and head for the lead. “I love this filly because she’s always been an overachiever considering her make-up, she’s kind of a smaller filly and on the slender side. She had a very impressive workout here with Irad [Ortiz Jr.] on the grass, she sat back and shot right through the middle of a couple of lesser-talented stablemates, trying to teach her to rate and come from off the pace.”

Love Reigns is one of two fillies in Sunday’s main event who ran in the Queen Mary, along with the Graham Motion-trained Grand Oak, who finished a non-threatening 18th in the bulky 21-horse field. The outing came less than four weeks after her very impressive turf debut, when she withstood an early pace duel before drawing away to win by a widening four lengths in a Churchill Downs maiden race.

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Six fillies come into the Bolton Landing off victories in their previous starts, a group that along with No Kay Never includes Sweet Harmony, Sicilian Grandma, Aztec Nights, Redefined, and Danse Macabre.

Sweet Harmony is the only stakes winner in the lineup, having followed her maiden tally on dirt with a game 1 3/4-length victory in Monmouth Park’s five-furlong Colleen Stakes when trying grass for the first time four weeks ago.