Phipps winner Dorth Vader will point to Personal Ensign Stakes
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – After answering the distance question once and for all with her authoritative, 4 3/4-length victory going 1 1/8 miles in Friday’s Ogden Phipps, Dorth Vader has suddenly emerged as a major player in the filly and mare handicap division for the second half of the season.
Trainer George Weaver said Dorth Vader came out of her first Grade 1 win in good order and that he is now in the process of mapping out an itinerary that, if all goes well, would culminate with a start five months down the road at Del Mar in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
“She’ll run no more than three times before the Breeders’ Cup, although two races would probably be ideal,” Weaver said. “The [Aug. 23] Personal Ensign is a little far away but she likes this racetrack, so that would likely be the goal for now.”
Weaver admitted he was uncertain whether Dorth Vader really wanted to go two turns coming into the Phipps despite her strong performance in the 1 1/16-mile La Troienne five weeks earlier when she finished a troubled fourth, beaten just 1 1/2 lengths by Raging Sea.
“Johnny [Velazquez] came back after the La Troienne and said with a cleaner trip she very well could have won that race, which I took as a good sign,” Weaver said. “And she’s definitely learned to settle without the blinkers. But I admit I always questioned her ability to handle the distance. Now we know she can do it.”
Like Weaver, trainer Chad Brown has every right to be extremely excited about the second half of the season for Ways and Means after her 7 3/4-length victory in Friday’s Grade 2 Bed o’ Roses for which she earned a whopping 111 Beyer Speed Figure.
“I had a good feeling she was really going to move forward off her first race of the year at Churchill Downs,” Brown said Monday, referring to Ways and Means’s third-place finish five weeks earlier in the Derby City Distaff. “Through all her success earlier in her career, there were some stoppages and it was certainly tough to keep her really sound and healthy on a consistent basis.
“But from the Churchill race to this weekend, everything was flawless and she loves Saratoga. She just looked terrific coming into the race, and that’s how she ran. Terrific.”
Brown said the Grade 1 Ballerina, which along with the Personal Ensign will be run here Aug. 23, is the next goal for Ways and Means with a start in the Grade 2 Honorable Miss five weeks earlier a possibility if “she was itching to run back.”
Ways and Means’s performance was part of a huge Friday for Brown that culminated with a one-two finish by Dynamic Pricing and Excellent Truth in the Grade 1 Just a Game.
“Dynamic Pricing got the better trip of the two for sure, but I thought both of them ran terrific, handled the off going well, and both are probably headed to the Diana [on July 12] next,” Brown said.
Dynamic Pricing received a lifetime-best 100 Beyer Speed Figure for her effort over the yielding course while earning her first Grade 1 victory. Excellent Truth’s frustrations at that level continue.
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She has now finished second in three straight Group 1/Grade 1 races, the last two of those starts coming since joining Brown’s barn for 2025. She also was narrowly beaten despite an eventful trip in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley earlier this spring at Keeneland.
“She’s now been second with challenging trips in two Grade 1 races for us,” Brown acknowledged. “I felt she got fouled in her previous start, and here I wish things could have unfolded differently on the first turn after which she wound up getting caught wide turning for home. It was really a monster effort by her.”
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