Private Zone draws post 3 in Sprint Championship

ELMONT, N.Y. – Private Zone, who has won three Grade 1 races in New York, drew post 3 and heads an eight-horse field in Saturday’s Grade 3, $400,000 Belmont Sprint Championship at seven furlongs.

Private Zone is coming off a third-place finish behind Honor Code and Tonalist in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap. Two starts back, he won the Grade 2 Churchill Downs Stakes at seven furlongs.

In three previous trips to New York, Private Zone has won back-to-back runnings of the Grade 1 Vosburgh at six furlongs and the Grade 1 Cigar Mile last fall at Aqueduct.

His competition Saturday will include Grade 1 King’s Bishop winner The Big Beast, who drew post 2, and Clearly Now, last year’s Belmont Sprint Championship winner, who will break from post 5.

The rest of the field consists of Bay of Plenty, Green Gratto, Stallwalkin’ Dude, C. Zee, and Moonlight Song.

** Promise Me Silver, who suffered her first defeat in nine lifetime starts when she finished 10th in the Grade 1 Acorn last month, will break from the rail in a field of six entered for Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Victory Ride Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at 6 1/2 furlongs.

Promise Me Silver had won seven stakes, including the Grade 3 Eight Belles, before getting used up in a pace battle in the Acorn. She will be reunited with Robby Albarado, aboard for three of her previous victories.

Outside of Promise Me Silver will be Enchanting Lady, Super Saks, Kathballu, Irish Jasper, and Miss Ella.

** Also on Saturday, Samraat, unraced since running in the 2014 Kentucky Derby, will return to the races in a 1 1/16-mile allowance race. Samraat, a New York-bred son of Noble Causeway, won the Withers and Gotham – both Grade 3 stakes at Aqueduct – last year before running second in the Wood Memorial and fifth in the Kentucky Derby.

He suffered a stress fracture in his right front cannon bone while preparing for last year’s Jim Dandy.