May Day Ready Eyes Tilt at Belmont Oaks Invitational

[Wandering Eyes]

GSW & GISP May Day Ready (Tapit) is reportedly being pointed toward a start in the GI Belmont Oaks Invitational during the July 4 Racing Festival at Saratoga.

The GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf runner-up took her show on the road after that 2024 seasonal highlight, and tried her luck in the G1 Hanshin Juvenile Fillies in Kyoto, Japan as a cap for her 2-year-old season. While she finished 13th then, she returned to the States and made her '25 bow in the off-turf GIII Wonder Again Stakes June 7. MGSW Nitrogen (Medaglia d'Oro) ran off the screen by 17 lengths with only two others still in the race–including May Day Ready–after the rest scratched out, but trainer Joe Lee says that the choice to keep her in had been an intentional one.

“I'm really happy with how she's doing,” said Lee. “Off the turf wasn't ideal, but the owners wanted to take a shot and get a race in her.”

Lee continued, “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, [as] opposed to straight off [the bench] about seven months then.”

Out over the Belmont training track Saturday morning, the Tapit filly clocked four furlongs in :51.55 (105/114) in her first move at the venue since moving up to New York from Keeneland for the Wonder Again. Her last work in Kentucky had been a four panel breeze in :49 flat (10/29) after working consistently at that home base leading up to the Saratoga appearance. Since then, Lee believes that his charge has continued 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.”

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