Ways and Means catches Grand Job on the wire in Bed o' Roses
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The anticipated duel between Ways and Means and Grand Job more than met expectations in Friday’s Grade 2 Bed o’ Roses Stakes at Saratoga with a familiar outcome.
Ways and Means caught Grand Job at the finish to win the $300,000 race by a nose. Ways and Means became the first mare to win the Bed o’ Roses twice since By the Moon in 2016 and 2017.
For Grand Job, the narrow defeat was her second consecutive loss by a nose. She was beaten by that margin in the Grade 1 Madison Stakes at Keeneland on April 4.
For 99 percent of the seven-furlong Bed o’ Roses, Grand Job seemed on her way to her second stakes win. She set a rapid pace of 22.07 for the opening quarter-mile and 43.97 for a half-mile, leading Ways and Means by a length.
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Grand Job, ridden by Junior Alvarado, led by two lengths with a furlong remaining, a margin that Ways and Means reduced only in the final 50 yards. Ways and Means, ridden by Flavien Prat, reached the front in the final stride.
“I got outrun the first part,” Prat said. “I was hoping at some time the leader would come back to me. My filly was brave enough.”
Sent off favored, Ways and Means ($3.46) ran seven furlongs in 1:21.05 and earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 107.
Grand Job, the 6-5 second choice, finished 9 1/2 lengths clear of 11-1 Senza Parole.
“She ran her heart out,” Alvarado said. “She won the race every step of the way except the one that mattered.”
Scalable finished fourth, followed by Vincey Girl and Praying. Chad Brown trains Ways and Means and Senza Parole.
“I’m thankful we were able to get there in the nick of time,” Brown said.
Ways and Means, a 5-year-old mare by Practical Joke, has won 6 of 12 starts. She has earned $1,362,500. Owned by Seth Klarman’s Klaravich Stables, Ways and Means had her second start of 2026 in the Bed o’ Roses, her fifth win in six career starts at Saratoga.
On May 2, Ways and Means finished second by 2 1/4 lengths to R Disaster in the Grade 1 Derby City Distaff at seven furlongs at Churchill Downs, her first start since a win in the 2025 Bed o’ Roses Stakes.
Ways and Means was sidelined in the second half of 2025 because of illnesses, setbacks that prevented a start in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Del Mar last November.
Brown said the BC Filly and Mare Sprint at Keeneland on Oct. 31 is a goal for Ways and Means, who he said will be retired at the end of this year.
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