Saratoga: Despite perfect main-track record, Kid Kate entered in grass stakes; $66,254 pick-six carryover Monday

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Kid Kate is perfect in four starts over the main track at Saratoga, which makes it surprising the multiple stakes winner has shown up in the entries for Monday’s $100,000 Shakespeare Caress Stakes, an overnight stakes for fillies and mares carded to be run at 5 1/2 furlongs on the turf. There is a $66,254 pick-six carryover heading into Monday's card as the bet went unhit Sunday.

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With rain in the forecast over the weekend, Kid Kate, who won both the Rachel Alexandra and Lady Tak overnight stakes here last summer, could find herself in a sweet spot should the Shakespeare Caress be switched off the grass. But trainer Chad Brown has also not ruled out the possibility of trying this daughter of Lemon Drop Kid on the turf for the second time in her career.

“I put her in there to take a look,” said Brown, who trains the homebred Kid Kate for Dell Ridge Farm. “If it comes off, she’ll start for sure, but I might run her on the grass. The overnight stakes I wanted to run her in did not go, so I’m kind of jammed up with no place to run. She ran on the turf one time, a two-turn race when she was 3, and I just think it was too far for her. I’ve always thought she’d want to run one turn on the grass. I might give it a shot – we don’t have much to lose.”

Like Kid Kate, Zermatt has limited experience on the grass, having finished third going a mile in her only turf start at Gulfstream Park during the winter of 2011. Kid Kate has excelled over artificial surfaces, having registered 3 of her 4 career wins over the Polytrack at Keeneland. And like Brown, trainer Todd Pletcher needs to find some place for Zermatt to run.

“I’ve just been kind of looking for options with her. We missed a couple of Polytrack options, and this race is the next-best thing we can find,” said Pletcher. “She breezed pretty well here on the turf, so we’re taking a shot. The distance is probably the biggest question.”

Zermatt is one of two fillies Pletcher entered in the Shakespeare Caress, along with the speedy Afleet Lass.

Kid Kate – if she goes on the grass – and Zermatt will find themselves up against several proven turf-sprint specialists, including Well Deserved, an impressive allowance winner in her last start, and Holiday for Kitten, who has not run since capturing an open allowance race going five furlongs over the Gulfstream grass course last December.

Well Deserved led throughout while cruising to an easy 3 3/4-length decision going five furlongs under high-priced optional claiming conditions on June 14 at Churchill Downs. The win was the second this year and third in eight grass sprints overall for Well Deserved.

Holiday for Kitten, who upset Musical Romance last fall over the Keeneland Polytrack in the Grade 2 TCA Stakes, finished a troubled ninth against males in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint before concluding her 3-year-old campaign with her allowance win in Florida.

The speedy Rose Salvaje, idle since wiring mid-level optional claiming competition at Gulfstream in mid-January and Ballistic Sue, who used a similar style to defeat low-level optional claiming rivals on June 1 at Belmont Park, also loom key contenders while assuring an honest pace.