Second Stakes Victory for Munnings’ Kaylasaurus

It was an impressive run up the center of the track for Kaylasaurus (6m Munnings x Five Diamonds, by Flatter) to win the Primonetta Stakes at Laurel Park on Saturday.

Breaking widest of all in the six furlong stakes race, Kaylasaurus was in the last spot in the tightly packed field down the backstretch. Her wide run left her plenty of clear room in front of her as she started to make her winning move, going seven wide down the stretch to be one of four in line going to the final sixteenth.

Kaylasaurus took over in the shadow of the wire to get her second career stakes victory by three quarters of a length.

Trained by Timothy Kreiser for Bush Racing Stable, Liberty House Racing, BlackRidge Stable, and George Saufley, Kaylasaurus has won eight of her 23 starts with seven other top three finishes.

The Munnings mare has really come into her own in the last six months, starting with an Allowance Optional Claiming win in late November and just improving from there.

In the five runs since that race, she’s won two stakes, was second in one other, and was just off the board in the Grade III Barbara Fritchie Stakes in February.

“She’s always been a pretty nice horse,” winning trainer Tim Kreiser said. “She’s definitely filled out, and I think she’s a lot stronger right now.”

Out of the stakes winning Five Diamonds, Kaylasaurus was bred in Pennsylvania by Arrowwood Farm.

She is one of four winners for her dam, who is a half-sister to the stakes-placed Smart Tor. The family also includes Grade I winners Requebra and In Essence in addition to multiple graded stakes winners Tap and Tap Is Back. Kaylasaurus’s fourth dam is the French Group I winner Hippodamia.

It has been a big week for Munnings, who also had the most expensive filly of the OBS Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds and the second most expensive offering at the Goffs UK Breeze Up Sale.