May Day Ready

Mission accomplished. Three months ago, after Thought Process (f, 4, Collected--Creative Thinking, by Creative Cause) kickstarted her 4-year-old campaign with a win in the Feb. 28 GII Buena Vista Stakes at Santa Anita, Billy Koch of Little Red Feather Racing said, "Ultimately, our goal has always been the Gamely." On Monday, that vision became reality with jockey Hector Berrios pumping his arm in celebration as Thought Process crossed the wire much the best in the 1 1/8-mile GI Gamely Stakes on Santa Anita's Memorial Day program. It marked the chestnut's...

Guided on the lawn by former Eclipse Outstanding Jockey Jose Ortiz, May Day Ready (Tapit--Nemoralia, by More Than Ready) pulled the proverbial wool over the eyes of her competitors by absconding with every pole to take the GII Lake Placid Stakes at the Spa on Saturday. May Day Ready made the local course her own over a year ago when she broke her maiden by a nose at first asking. The bay shipped to Kentucky Downs and won the Juvenile Fillies Stakes in early September, then netted the GII Jessamine...

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...

Luis Gavignano's involvement in horse racing, which began innocently enough with a few claiming horses at Laurel Park in 2017, has blossomed into a racing, breeding and pinhooking operation with its own burgeoning home base in Ocala. His Lugamo Racing, with a dozen broodmares to support its graded-stakes winning first-season stallion, as well as a new stakes winner among its 10 horses in training, will offer 14 juveniles at the upcoming Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training. Gavignano traces his love of horses back to his...

Normally held at Hanshin, the G1 Hanshin Juvenile Fillies has moved to Kyoto this year as the former track is being renovated, and a full field of 18 vie for top-level honours on Sunday. Leading Team Japan is Brown Ratchet (Jpn), a Kizuna (Jpn) half-sister to GI Kentucky Derby and GI Breeders' Cup Classic third Forever Young (Jpn) (Real Steel {Jpn}). Two-for-two in her young career, the daughter of Forever Darling (Congrats) won a Nakayama affair in her bow on Sept. 16 over 200 metres farther than Sunday's distance, and...

May Day Ready (Tapit), the runner-up in last Friday's GI John Deere Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Del Mar, will make her next start in the G1 Hanshin Juvenile Fillies at Kyoto Racecourse in Japan Dec. 8, according to a tweet on X by her trainer Joseph Lee. Lee posted, "After discussing May Day Ready's future with Mr. and Mrs. Doyle and George Barnes @katierichfarms, the decision has officially been made to ship her to JAPAN to run her in the G1 Hanshin Juvenile Fillies on December 8th." The...

It was a frustrating few days in the lead-up to the Breeders' Cup meeting for Team Ballydoyle, with the likes of Ylang Ylang (GB) (Frankel {GB}) and Diego Velazquez (Ire) (Frankel {GB}) forced to miss the event, not to mention Jan Brueghel (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) having to forego an appearance even farther afield in the G1 Melbourne Cup next Tuesday. Their biggest moment comes Saturday with City of Troy (Justify) in the $7-million Classic, but 'TDN Rising Star' Lake Victoria (Ire) (Frankel {GB}) was first to strike for the Irish-based...

Repole Stable's 'TDN Rising Star' Fierceness (City of Light), expected to vie for favoritism in next Saturday's GI Breeders' Cup Classic at Del Mar, turned in his final breeze Friday ahead of the $7-million centerpiece of championship weekend, going a half-mile in :48.98 over the Oklahoma training track. With his regular work rider Danny Wright in the irons, the homebred began his work slightly behind a workmate, drew alongside at the entrance to the stretch and was in front at the line before galloping out five furlongs in 1:02 1/5....

KatieRich Stables LLC's May Day Ready (Tapit), who proved narrowly best in a three-way photo in Friday's 'Win and You're In' GII Jessamine Stakes at Keeneland, will return to the Belmont Park base of trainer Joe Lee to prepare for the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. "I guess we will go back to New York; she trains well over that track," Lee said. "Probably ship in the next few days. She lost the right front shoe, so we are going to take a good look at it here. She...

It was a three-way go at the end of 8 1/2 furlongs of Friday's GII Jessamine Stakes at Keeneland, a 'Win and You're In' challenge race for the Nov. 1 GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Del Mar, and when the dust had settled, it was KatieRich Stable LLC's May Day Ready (Tapit) who got her nose down on the wire first over Totally Justified (Justify) to her inner and favored Destino d'Oro (Bolt d'Oro) to her outside. Snatched up just after the break, May Day Ready was tough...

Tickets, please! Keeneland's fall meet has the turnstiles primed Friday and that means the featured GI Darley Alcibiades Stakes will fill the apron on what promises to be massive weekend with some 30 graded races across North America--half of which have Breeders' Cup implications. The signature top-level race at the site of the Old Keene Farm was named for a foundational mare who was bred at Hal Price Headley's Beaumont--where modern-day Mill Ridge resides. Alcibiades won the 1930 Kentucky Oaks for Headley, who was one the Keeneland Association's founders and...

May Day Ready (Tapit) put it all together once again in her second career start to claim the Kentucky Downs Juvenile Fillies Stakes. A winner on unveiling Aug. 4 at Saratoga as the second longest shot on the board in a roughly run maiden on the grass, she shipped south from that productive contest which also yielded Ballerina d'Oro (Medaglia d'Oro), who won an allowance earlier on the same card. Sent away here at 9-2, she tracked the action in front of her from sixth and raced along from cover...