May Day Ready To Try For Grade 1 Breakthrough In Belmont Oaks Invitational
KatieRich Stables' recent Wonder Again (G3) third-place finisher May Day Ready is aimed for the Grade 1, $500,000 Belmont Oaks Invitational, a nine-furlong turf test for sophomore fillies, on Saturday July 5 during the July 4 Racing Festival at Saratoga Race Course.
Trained by Joe Lee, the Tapit bay has already earned over $1 million through a 6-3-1-1 record. As a 2-year-old, she graduated on debut at the Spa, then won the Kentucky Downs Juvenile Fillies (L) at its namesake oval, the Grade 2 Jessamine at Keeneland, before finishing second in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf in November at Del Mar.
To cap her past campaign, May Day Ready finished off-the-board overseas in the Group 1 Hanshin Juvenile Fillies at Kyoto Racecourse in Japan. She returned from the layoff in the off-the-turf Wonder Again on June 7 at Saratoga, where she finished behind two Hall of Famer Mark Casse-trained rivals, including the victorious multiple graded stakes winner Nitrogen, in the field scratched down to three.
'I'm really happy with how she's doing. Off the turf wasn't ideal, but the owners wanted to take a shot and get a race in her,' said Lee. 'If we already had a race in her, we could've scratched, but the goal was the Belmont Oaks, and we wanted to have something going into it, opposed to straight off about seven months then.'
May Day Ready is already established as a classy filly and Lee believes she can continue to improve.
'She's definitely filled out. She is not a big, imposing type of horse, but she never was,' Lee said. 'She is doing everything right, is really sound, great attitude, and she eats well– all indications that she'll hopefully improve from age two to three. That is always a question mark with fillies, but with her attitude, I'm hoping she does.'
May Day Ready, bred in Kentucky by White Birch Farm out of the Group 3-winning More Than Ready mare Nemoralia, was a $325,000 purchase at the 2024 OBS Spring Two-Year-Olds in Training Sale.
Lee added that KatieRich Stables, Christopher Connors, and Lawrence Appel's New York-homebred Works for Me may wait for the $150,000 Harvey Pack (L) on July 4 at Saratoga rather than contest Saturday's state-bred $125,000 Ashley T. Cole at Belmont at the Big A, which takes entries Sunday.
'We're leaning towards the Harvey Pack just to give him a little more time in between races, the timing just seems better to wait that extra week,' Lee said Saturday.
The 4-year-old Daddy Long Legs chestnut earned a game open optional claiming victory last out sprinting 5 1/2 furlongs on June 6 during the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival at the Spa – the course and distance of the Harvey Pack.
This story was originally reported by Paulick Report on Jun 22, 2025, where it first appeared.
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