Five-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer Chad Brown will send out two fillies—Play With Fire and Lavender Disaster—in the $175,000 Lake George Stakes (G3T) July 26 at Saratoga Race Course.
Brown has had great success in the 1 1/16-mile race, having sent out seven winners in the last 10 years with five consecutive wins from 2019-23. Brown's most recent success in the race came in 2023 with Surge Capacity, who went on to become a grade 1 winner and sell for $3.6 million in foal to perennial leading sire Into Mischief at Fasig-Tipton's The November Sale last fall.
There are 10 3-year-old fillies entered in the body of the field, plus one main-track-only entrant.
LSU Stables' Play With Fire comes into the race with a stakes win under her belt. She took the Hilltop Stakes at Pimlico Race Course May 16, where she defeated reopposing Pretty Lavish and Princess Attitude.
Brown's fillies will have a rematch with Gary Barber, Blue Crevalle Racing, and Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners' Classic Q, gate-to-wire winner of the Wild Applause Stakes at Saratoga July 3. The daughter of Classic Empire held off Play With Fire by half a length in the Wild Applause, with Peter Brant's Lavender Disaster another 1 3/4 lengths back in third.
"There wasn't any speed in the race last time. I prefer, and I think (jockey Jose Ortiz) prefers, to try and get her to settle," dual Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse said of Classic Q. "Now, we're going another sixteenth of a mile, but we'll take a closer look at the race and see. She's training well and she likes it here, so we're going to give it a shot.
"Last time, Chad's horse (Lavender Disaster) did put a little pressure on us, and she put that horse away," added Casse, who won this race last year with Pounce. "If we do go to the lead and they run with her, they won't be around at the end. But we'll see."
Trainer Rusty Arnold will send out the lone graded stakes-placed filly in the field—Calumet Farm's homebred Daisy Flyer. The Mshawish filly was most recently third in the Herecomesthebride Stakes (G3T) at Gulfstream Park March 1, where she edged Classic Q by a nose for the show.
"Her 2-year-old year was better than it looked," Arnold said. "She got beat first time and then she won at Kentucky Downs in a pretty good race. She got injured in the Miss Grillo and missed the rest of the year, but we've always been high on this filly.
"We're hoping to get her back to that point where we can run her a mile and a quarter, mile and a half—that's what she wants, but we have to get started here."
Saratoga Race Course, Saturday, July 26, 2025, Race 9Entries: Lake George S. Presented by Surfside (G3T)
PP Horse Jockey Wgt Trainer M/L 1 1Reining Flowers (KY) John R. Velazquez 120 John Alexander Ortiz 15/1 2 2Pretty Lavish (IRE) Javier Castellano 120 H. Graham Motion 12/1 3 3Daisy Flyer (KY) Jose Lezcano 120 George R. Arnold II 12/1 4 4Lavender Disaster (KY) Irad Ortiz, Jr. 120 Chad C. Brown 5/2 5 5Classic Q (KY) Jose L. Ortiz 122 Mark E. Casse 2/1 6 6Princess Attitude (KY) Junior Alvarado 120 Victoria H. Oliver 15/1 7 7Pookie (KY) Dylan Davis 120 Thomas Morley 20/1 8 8Aterradora (IRE) Ricardo Santana, Jr. 120 Michael J. Maker 10/1 9 9Good Long Cry (FL) Luis Saez 120 George Weaver 20/1 10 10Play With Fire (MN) Manuel Franco 122 Chad C. Brown 4/1 11 11Kay Cup (NY) Irad Ortiz, Jr. 124 Jorge R. Abreu 1/1
