Edited NYRA Staff Release — Wesley Ward, winning trainer of Kimari (No. 5, $3.20*): “That’s what you want to see, right? We were excited and this race set up beautifully for her time wise to get from here to the Breeders’ Cup [Grade 1 Filly and Mare Sprint on November 5 at Keeneland].
“The timing gave her a couple of extra weeks [as opposed to a start in the Grade 2 Thoroughbred Club of America on October 8 at Keeneland]. She always relishes the time between starts. For her, it should work out perfect. Whether she’s good enough, we’ll find out.
“She’ll head back to Keeneland tomorrow. It’ll give her six weeks on both her and my home track, so hopefully everything works out.
“A lot of things have worked out for her in her last two starts when she drew the outside. When you’re last in, she bounces away from there. In the Breeders’ Cup, it’ll be a bigger field so if she gets there down below, Joel [Rosario] will have to work his way out, so we’ll see how it goes.”
Joel Rosario, winning jockey aboard Kimari (No. 5): “She’s special. She runs hard all the time and she ran a good race again today. She was very comfortable. She was loving what she was doing out there. For a second, I was worried the horse in front of me [No. 1, Lady Rocket] would keep moving forward but my filly kept gaining and I had a lot of confidence.”
Irad Ortiz, Jr., jockey of runner-up Lady Rocket (No. 1): “No excuses. I can’t complain. We were second best today. We got beat by a very nice filly.”
Winning margin: 1 1/4-lengths
Final time (6 1/2-furlongs): 1:16.58
Fractions: 23.55, 46.98, 1:10.50
