Maxim Rate Faces Familiar Foes in Honeymoon

Friday, May 31, 2019 | 12:39 pm

Traienr Simon Callaghan, right, celebrates with jockey Flavien Prat, left, after Run Away's victory in the Grade II, $200,000 Best Pal Stakes, Saturday, August 12, 2017 at Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, Del Mar CA. © BENOIT PHOTO

Maxim Rate (Exchange Rate) is just a nose short of being perfect and she rematches with some familiar faces Saturday in the GII Honeymoon S. at Santa Anita. A debut winner in Arcadia Feb. 16, she came up a nose short of stablemate Hostess (GB) (Iffraj {GB}) in the course-and-distance GIII Providencia S. Apr. 6 and returned to winning ways in the one-mile GIII Senorita S. May 4, in which Hostess finished fourth.

Senorita runner-up Lady Prancealot (Ire) (Sir Prancealot {Ire}) also returns here. Capturing a local optional claimer on seasonal bow Feb. 1, the bay was a close third in the Providencia and was just a half-length short of Maxim Rate in the Senorita.

Sold It (The Factor) ran fourth behind Lady Prancealot after setting the pace in that Feb. 1 test and wired the California Oaks on the Golden Gate synthetic last time Apr. 27.