Ways and Means tunes up for BC Filly and Mare Sprint with Gallant Bloom

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Ways and Means looks to have gotten the ideal prep for next month’s Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint with a relatively easy and handy four-length victory in Sunday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Gallant Bloom run over a sloppy track at Aqueduct.

Ways and Means, the 2-5 favorite, pressed the pace of Nic’s Style through a quarter in 22.65 seconds, and a half-mile in 45.96. Under Flavien Prat, Ways and Means took over in upper stretch, then ran away from Nic’s Style in the final furlong. Nic’s Style finished second by 2 3/4 lengths over Sterling Silver. Hot Fudge and Pacific Rose complete the order of finish.

The win was the third straight for Ways and Means and helped bridge the 13-week gap from her victory in the Grade 1 Test at Saratoga on Aug. 3 to the Filly and Mare Sprint at Del Mar on Nov. 2.

“It was just what we wanted to do,” Chad Brown, who trains Ways and Means for owner Seth Klarman. “I was getting increasingly uneasy about 13 weeks for this horse; I didn’t think she had quite enough racing under her belt this year.”

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Brown said he was also concerned about the sloppy track in the Gallant Bloom, noting that Ways and Means did not run well in the Kentucky Oaks, also run in the slop. But that was at 1 1/8 miles and in a full field of some of the top 3-year-old route fillies in the country.

On Sunday, Brown praised Prat for getting Ways and Means into proper position early on.

“I thought Flavien did a good job to sort of hold his position down the backside and not take back and just make her hold her position and eventually secure the second position as the race unfolded,” Brown said. “That was the key to keeping her face clean the rest of the way.”

Prat said he knew Nic’s Style would be the speed of the field, and just wanted to put his filly in good early position.

“I thought she was traveling very good all the way around and when I asked her to get going down the lane she responded the proper way,” Prat said. “It was a smooth trip from that point.”

Ways and Means covered the 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:15.46 and returned $2.90. She earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 101.

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