By Tim Wilkin
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — If you believed the tote board before the seventh race at Saratoga Race Course Sunday afternoon, it was best to move right on by the No. 8 horse in the $100,000 Maiden Special Weight for 2-year-old fillies.
May Day Ready (Tapit) had no chance to win her debut, a 1 1/16-mile race on the inner turf. At least that's what the betting public thought. She was dead on the board at odds of 25-1; second longest shot in the field of 10.
“The horse didn't know that,” owner Larry Doyle of KatieRich Stables LLC said with a big grin.
Indeed, May Day Ready did not. She showed grit, determination, courage … take your pick … and found her way to the winner's circle, much to the delight of Doyle and trainer Joe Lee.
Doyle, who owns KatieRich Farms in Midway, Ky with his wife, Karen, was celebrating his first-ever win at Saratoga after May Day Ready and jockey Frankie Dettori powered to the finish line to edge the fast-closing Love Tempo (Ire) (Churchill {Ire}). The margin of victory was the slimmest of noses. It was also the first Spa victory for Lee, a former assistant to former trainer Kiaran McLaughlin, who is now the jockey agent for Luis Saez and Hall of Famer John Velazquez.
Jojo Lee, Joseph Lee, Larry Doyle, and Patrick Usas | Sarah Andrew
Doyle, from Long Island, bought May Day Ready with an eye towards a breeding career for her. She is by the More Than Ready mare Nemoralia and Doyle bought her for $325,000 at the Ocala Spring Sale of 2-year-olds in training.
“The breeding,” Doyle said about why he bought her. “We think that down the road she will be a broodmare. Tapit. More Than Ready. We are commercial breeders, and we really liked the bloodlines. We just thought we would take a shot and thought the residual value was there.”
Getting a win the first time out certainly won't hurt the breeding possibilities. Who knows what might come next?
Doyle estimates he has run maybe a dozen horses at Saratoga. Before Sunday, his best finish was a second in the then GII Schuylerville in 2002 with Miss Mary Apples, a filly he owned with Christopher Connors.
Lee, 62, began his career working for future Hall of Famer D Wayne Lukas with McLaughlin when he graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1989. In 1993, he went to Dubai with McLaughlin and worked there for seven years. From there, he went to Japan for 11 years.
He worked with plenty of champion horses. Now, he has a modest stable of five horses, all of them stabled at Belmont Park. Lee has been in the winner's circle, just not as a winning trainer. Until May Day Ready got him there. The result caught him by surprise.
“I was hoping she would be laying seventh, eight, maybe eight or nine lengths off,” Lee said. “And we would finish third or fourth, beaten three lengths, to be honest with you. I am really happy.”
In the winner's circle, Doyle and Lee got to see first-hand the traditional flying dismount from Dettori. They thought they were dreaming. May Day Ready was timed in 1:46.35 and paid $53.50.
Lee said the celebration would probably short-lived. May Day Ready would be on a van back to Belmont Park by 7 p.m. and he would be right behind. He has four other horses he tends to at Belmont; he plans on running some of them in the coming weeks at Saratoga.
“I really thought this one had a shot,” Lee said. “She has always showed class in the mornings and today she did what she had to do to do what she did.”
MAY DAY READY, the 2YO daughter of @Gainesway stallion Tapit, holds on to break her maiden at 25-1 with @FrankieDettori up for trainer Joseph Lee. pic.twitter.com/OjuArCz7pQ
— NYRA (🎪) (@TheNYRA) August 4, 2024
7th-Saratoga, $100,000, Msw, 8-4, 2yo, f, 1 1/16mT, 1:46.35, gd, nose.
MAY DAY READY (f, 2, Tapit–Nemoralia {GSW & G1SP-Eng, MGISP-USA, $544,633}, by More Than Ready), cold on the board at 25-1 for this unveiling, pulled the shocker in the end as she held off all challengers late to win in a photo. Racing along in ninth just off the fence once the field got on their way, she had to be tipped out five wide for room and was in the clear with seven-sixteenths left to travel before she tucked in along the rail into the far turn. That, in turn, caused a chain reaction which left several horses in tough spots, but May Day Ready was still moving forward and she had taken command by the eighth pole. Shying away from the right hand stick but gamely hanging tough as the favorite Love Tempo (Ire) (Churchill {GB}) loomed the late danger, she just denied that rival by the thinnest of margins on the wire. There was a jockey's objection by one of the riders involved in the traffic trouble, and after a review, the objection was dismissed with the result allowed to stand.
Out of multiple Grade I/Group 1-placed Nemoralia, who was also a group winner in England in addition to being placed in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, May Day Ready is her most recent to the races. Her elder brother Bosque Redondo (War Front) is a course record setter at Tampa Bay Downs. Their dam's last registered offspring thus far is a yearling by Munnings. Sales history: $60,000 Ylg '23 FTKOCT; $325,000 2yo '24 OBSAPR. Lifetime Record: 1-1-0-0, $55,000. Click for the Equibase.com chart or VIDEO, sponsored by FanDuel TV.
O-KatieRich Stables LLC; B-White Birch Farm, Inc. (KY); T-Joseph R. Lee.
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