From her New York turf-route maiden debut in October through a Saratoga stakes in August, the script hasn’t changed: The 3-year-old filly Laurelin races, the 3-year-old filly Laurelin wins.
Laurelin’s Beyer Speed Figures have improved every start and, stepped up to Grade 2 competition from listed stakes, she blitzed the Saratoga Oaks Invitational, running straight as a string to win by 1 3/4 lengths.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a horse start out 5 for 5,” said trainer Graham Motion.
A sixth straight victory, in the $800,000 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup, and Laurelin will have her first Grade 1.
They’re not handing it to her. Laurelin, the 5-2 morning-line favorite under Kendrick Carmouche, has beaten QE II rivals Opulent Restraint and Candy Quest on multiple occasions. The others – Lush Lips, Simmering, Daisy Flyer, Destino d’Oro, Will Then, and Fionn – she faces for the first time. Will Then has no apparent path to victory, but five new foes rate some sort of win chance, and the 1 1/8-mile QE II, as it should, marks Laurelin’s toughest test.
A Zarak filly bred in Ireland, Laurelin was purchased at a yearling sale there by South African connections – the Newstead Farm of Jessica Slack Jell – who sent her to Motion in Maryland.
“We’ve been on the more conservative side with her,” said Motion, who won athe 2003 QE II with Film Maker. “These guys give me no pressure at all. I gave her the winter off because I didn’t really want to take her to Florida. She’s handled everything pretty comfortably. I don’t think she’s really been tested.”
Laurelin breaks from post 2 and ought to stick close to the early gallop in a race lacking true pace. Earlier this year, rail-drawn Lush Lips would have led, but the filly, an Irish import, has gone from a blinkered pacesetter to a blinker-less stalker.
“She came to us, and we had to put blinkers on her because she was half asleep, and then she almost got a little too aggressive,” trainer Brendan Walsh said.
Lush Lips put everything together in easily winning the listed Tepin Stakes on June 28 at Churchill. Sent to California, she rated kindly in midpack and came with an outside swoop in the Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks on Aug. 16. Velocity, a 35-1 shot, snuck up the fence and beat Lush Lips by a half-length.
“The whole thing went exactly to plan – except that horse coming up the inside. I didn’t expect that,” said Walsh, who won five races during the Keeneland meet’s opening three-day week.
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If ever Lush Lips reverts to her pacesetting ways, this might be the time, as she and Tyler Gaffalione could steal off to an easy lead.
Trainer Brad Cox starts Fionn, the 3-1 morning-line second choice, and Destino d’Oro, 8-1 on the line after being bet off the board last month in the Dueling Grounds Oaks. An unlucky loser of the Jessamine Stakes last fall at Keeneland, Destino d’Oro didn’t race at 3 until June, closing powerfully from last of 10 to win a first-level allowance. The Grade 3 Pucker Up in August revealed a new dimension, with Destino d’Oro, strictly a one-run closer to that point, sitting second before powering to a 3 3/4-length win. None of that accounts for her desperately short 4-5 odds in the Dueling Grounds Oaks, where she checked in sixth after a mildly troubled stretch run.
“She got kind of stopped and couldn’t find a way through,” Cox said. “I haven’t given up on her at all. She’s training good.”
Fionn might not train with Destino d’Oro’s flash, but her record stands at 8-6-1-1, with earnings approaching $1.8 million. She’s won three in a row, with a Grade 1 Belmont Oaks Invitational victory over divisional leader Nitrogen coming before her game Dueling Grounds Oaks triumph. Passed there in midstretch by Candy Quest, Fionn fought back to win by a half-length.
Maybe Candy Quest moved slightly too soon in the 1 5/16-mile Dueling Grounds Oaks. Maybe she’s more naturally a miler. In any case, Laurelin ran right past her in the Penn Oaks.
Opulent Restraint came closest to defeating Laurelin, beaten a neck in the Memories of Silver. On paper the likely leader, Opulent Restraint runs for trainer Chad Brown, who has won the QE II a record five times.
Simmering, based in England with trainer Ollie Sangster, was scratched from the Grade 1 First Lady last weekend in favor of this age-restricted fillies race. She has yet to race farther than one mile, and while third in the 1000 Guineas in May, she is winless from five starts this year and has thrown three clunkers.
Daisy Flyer returned from a break of nearly five months to win the Grade 3 Lake George over 1 1/16 miles on July 26 at Saratoga and might want to run farther. Coming from last, she ran along the fence in the Dueling Grounds Oaks before being stopped once, then twice, her jockey eventually acknowledging defeat and saving something for later.
Later comes Saturday. To win the QE II, Daisy Flyer has to beat Laurelin. No one has yet.
* There will be a three-day pick six carryover of $408,657 up for grabs at Keeneland on Saturday.
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