It's the test for the Test.
Excuse the redundancy, but in recent years the $175,000 Victory Ride Stakes (G3) has been an appropriate steppingstone for 3-year-old filly sprinters to the Test Stakes (G1).
Yet this year the link between the two stakes is stronger than ever before.
Previously run downstate at Belmont Park or Aqueduct Racetrack, this year the Victory Ride will be contested July 3 on the first of four holiday weekend cards at Saratoga Race Course as the New York Racing Association spends its first Fourth of July at the beloved Spa.
That will give Victory Ride starters the added bonus of an all-important race over the track, if their connections are interested in the Aug. 2 seven-furlong Test at the Spa.
"That would be the idea if it goes the right way," said trainer Rusty Arnold, who will send out Gabriel "Spider" Duignan's Echo Sound to face four rivals in the 6 1/2-furlong Victory Ride. "Let's try this and find out about her, with the Test being the obvious place to go if she runs well."
The 3-year-old daughter of Echo Town opened 2025 with a solid, two-length victory in the Miss Preakness Stakes (G3) at Pimlico Race Course. It marked her fourth win in five career starts.
"You never know how a horse progresses from 2 to 3. She was turned out over the winter and she developed nicely, looked good, breezed good, and came back with a nice race," Arnold said.
Echo Sound's lone loss came when she raced beyond six furlongs for the only time in her career. She settled for second when she closed out her 2-year-old campaign in the Fern Creek Stakes over 6 1/2 furlongs at Churchill Downs.
Off her win in the Miss Preakness, when Echo Sound rallied from fifth, Arnold believes his filly is ready to handle the added ground.
"She acts like she'll rate well enough, so there shouldn't be a problem with the distance," Arnold said. "We're optimistic she can stretch out a little bit."
Out of the Fusaichi Pegasus mare Eagle Sound and a half sister to grade 2 winner Pick of the Litter, Echo Sound was bred by Duignan's Springhouse Farm, Vision TBs, and Bruce and Patricia Pieratt and has earned $363,745.
Speaking of preps, C Two Racing Stable, Paul Braverman, and Timothy Pinch's Indy Bay is coming off a win in the prep for the Victory Ride. Trained by Saffie Joseph Jr., the daughter of Take Charge Indy captured the six-furlong Jersey Girl Stakes June 8 at Saratoga.
The field also includes Beauty Reigns (Into Mischief ), who was third in the Jersey Girl, and Hollygrove (Complexity ), the pacesetter in the Miss Preakness who wound up third.
Saratoga Race Course, Thursday, July 3, 2025, Race 3Entries: Victory Ride S. (G3)
PP Horse Jockey Wgt Trainer M/L 1 1Beauty Reigns (KY) Junior Alvarado 120 William I. Mott 2/1 2 2Hollygrove (KY) John R. Velazquez 122 D. Whitworth Beckman 6/1 3 3Echo Sound (KY) Luis Saez 124 George R. Arnold II 9/5 4 4Indy Bay (KY) Irad Ortiz, Jr. 122 Saffie A. Joseph, Jr. 8/5 5 5Whatintheliteral (FL) Ricardo Santana, Jr. 120 Jena M. Antonucci 20/1
