Trainer Patrick Biancone hasn’t started a horse at Royal Ascot in nearly three decades but hopes to make a triumphant return to those hallowed grounds when he sends Royal Palm Juvenile Fillies winner Lennilu postward in the Group 2 Queen Mary on June 18.
Lennilu, a daughter of freshman sire Leinster, earned an automatic berth in one of the six juvenile races to be run at this year’s Royal Ascot meet, plus a $25,000 travel stipend, by virtue of her convincing and very popular 3 3/4-length victory over the $1.35 million yearling purchase Bibi Dahl while making her turf debut in the five-furlong Royal Palm Juvenile Fillies. The win was the second in as many starts for Lennilu, who captured her debut by a length over a sloppy track five weeks earlier at Keeneland.
Biancone said Lennilu has continued to train forwardly since her last start. She worked an easy half-mile on the main track at Palm Meadows in 49.65 seconds on May 22 and is scheduled breeze from the gate over the same surface Saturday.
“I need to get her used to breaking from the gate with no handler in the stall with her, which is the way it’s done at Ascot,” Biancone explained. “I schooled her inside the gate with no handler this morning [Wednesday] and she was really good, well-behaved. So far, she’s proven a very simple animal to train, and I expect her to move forward again from the experience she’s gained in her first two starts.”
Biancone said although it’s been a long while, he is certainly no stranger to Royal Ascot.
“I’ve started horses there many times and ran second in the King George, I think it was in 1989, but I’ve never won a race during the meet,” Biancone said. “Hopefully, that will change this time.”
The Queen Mary will be a family affair for the Biancones, with his daughter Andie, a reporter and analyst for FanDuel Racing who also serves as an assistant and exercise rider for her father, scheduled to make the trip to England to gallop Lennilu in the mornings leading up to the race.
Lennilu is scheduled to ship to Ascot from South Florida on June 10. She is one of four horses based locally over the winter who will run during the six-day Ascot session, along with Royal Palm Juvenile winner Sandal’s Song, his George Weaver-trained stablemate Tough Critic, who won his maiden at first asking earlier this the spring at Keeneland, and Bibi Dahl.
Biancone advised that Squire, who also is by Leinster, has been turned out for a little freshening following his second-place finish as the heavy favorite in the Royal Palm Juvenile.
“He’s a very talented horse but not as mature mentally right now as the filly [Lennilu],” Biancone noted. “He got a little anxious before his last race, so we decided to turn him out for 30 days and bring him back for the series of 2-year-old races [Florida Sire Series] on the dirt here later in the year.”
Rachels Song comes in hot
Friday’s main event is a $54,000 allowance/optional claimer restricted to statebred fillies and mares carded at one mile on turf. The race lured a field of seven topped by Rachels Song, who registered an impressive wire-to-wire, 3 1/2-length victory against open starter-allowance competition over the Tapeta course on April 24.
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Trained by Jose D’Angelo, Rachels Song posted back-to-back second-place finishes, also over the synthetic track, when pitted against Florida-bred allowance competition to close her 2024 campaign.
Rachel’s Song could find herself vying for the early lead with recent maiden-claiming winner Lady Khoz. The prospective pace battle likely would give stretch-running Burnaway a big chance to return quick dividends off the claim.
Burnaway was haltered for $12,500 by trainer Beau Chapman out of a one-sided conditioned-claiming victory over the Tapeta track earlier this month. She is equally accomplished on grass, having won once and finished in the money in four of her seven turf outings.
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