Trainer Brendan Walsh, with 10 winners and about $1.5 million worth of purses during April, had his best Keeneland meeting. His fall meet will approach, if not exceed, the spring, and the work Walsh and his crew did with the 3-year-old filly Lush Lips between April and October helped make her a Grade 1 winner Saturday in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup.
Racing a length or 1 1/2 lengths off the pace set by Opulent Restraint, Lush Lips and jockey Tyler Gaffalione surged past the leader with 1 1/2 furlongs left to race and comfortably held clear Laurelin, winning by 1 1/4 lengths and handing the runner up her first defeat after five wins to start her career. Opulent Restraint held third in a race dominated by the leading trio. Fionn, heavily bet from the start and favored at 3-2, closed from last of eight for fourth but was 2 3/4 lengths behind Opulent Restraint in this 1 1/8-mile grass race for 3-year-old fillies.
Walsh, who trains Lush Lips for Medallion Racing, Parkland Thoroughbreds, Hoffman Thoroughbreds, and Mrs. P Shanahan, won his sixth race of the meet and third graded stakes. Last Sunday, he sent out Gin Gin to upset the Grade 1 Spinster at odds of 18-1. Lush Lips, less surprising but far from obvious, paid $19.22.
Lush Lips raced twice in Ireland as a 2-year-old and once at Kentucky Downs for her former trainer, Donnacha O’Brien. When she went into the Walsh stable to prepare for a 2025 campaign, Walsh said the filly appeared to be sleepwalking in training. Walsh added blinkers, and Lush Lips transformed into a front-runner, a good one, too, coming within a half-length of divisional leader Nitrogen at Tampa Bay in the spring.
But to get the most out of Lush Lips, Walsh felt she needed to feel comfortable settling behind horses, and by June, she had that mastered. Maybe Lush Lips fell farther behind the pace than ideal when a longshot nipped her in the Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks, but her trip Saturday turned out perfect.
“They’ve done a fabulous job with this filly teaching her to relax,” Gaffalione said. “She’s come a long way this year.”
Opulent Restraint quickly took a lead in a relatively paceless renewal of the QE II, going her half-mile on a good course in a manageable 47.70. Lush Lips, fusing her speed and her responsiveness to her rider, sat a handy second, Laurelin coming off the fence on the backstretch to track Lush Lips. The third quarter-mile, run mainly on the turn, went in a fairly quick 24.38, the top trio breaking away from the field. Lush Lips came alongside Opulent Restraint at the furlong grounds and took her measure, and it wasn’t until the last 50 yards or so that Laurelin began eating into the lead. Lush Lips completed the 1 1/8 miles in 1:48.01.
Lush Lips, now a four-time winner from 10 starts, is by Ten Sovereigns out of Lamyaa, by Arcano. As good as she’s gotten this season, next year could be even better.
“We’ve always thought this filly was going to be a very good 4-year-old,” Walsh said.
Forget about next year. Lush Lips’s trainer is having a very, very good Keeneland right now.
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