Royal Delta earned yet another effortless score on Sunday, coasting home a 4
1/2-length winner under Mike Smith in Saratoga’s Grade 1, $588,000
Personal
Ensign Handicap. The Empire Maker mare avenged her close second in this same
contest last year when finishing nine furlongs over the fast track in 1:48 1/5.
“Everything went wrong, didn’t it, last year,” Smith said. “She got really,
really hot. I didn’t think I rode her really well last year. I was just getting
to know her. I didn’t let her use that big stride that she has early. I should
have then because I think I would have won that one. But you live and learn, and
it’s just getting better and better.”
“When she comes with her ‘A’ game, that’s what you expect,” Hall of Fame
trainer Bill Mott stated. “She was just good. She was good last time. Mike said
she was strong and felt great.”
Campaigned by Benjamin Leon’s Besilu Stables, Royal Delta was sent off the
heavy 1-2 favorite against her four rivals and returned $3.10, $2.10 and $2.10
to her many supporters. The $360,000 winner’s share boosted her already
impressive earnings to $4,611,126 and she now boasts a 12-4-1 career mark from
20 starts.
The victory also earned her an automatic berth in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff,
which she’s captured for the past two years under the moniker of Breeders’ Cup
Ladies’ Classic. Mott indicated that she’ll be cross-entered to both the Distaff
and Breeders’ Cup Classic, the same as 2012.
Royal Delta was more than a bit washed out entering the gate, and
was outbroke by On Fire Baby to her inside. The star mare’s younger opponent
gained a short lead rounding the first time, posting a first quarter split of
:23 2/5, but Smith was unable to hold his dual champion back for long. She
easily swooped past On Fire Baby entering the backstretch to gain firm command
of the race.
From there, Royal Delta once again showed her class by coasting along under
her own power through fractions of :46 3/5, 1:10 3/5 and 1:35 1/5. For a very
brief moment, Authenticity seemed ready to offer a challenge when rounding the
turn, but Royal Delta merely changed gears and opened up in the stretch under
what appeared to be unnecessary whip encouragement from Smith.
“Down the lane, she got to looking around the track a little bit, so I got
after her just a little to keep her going,” Smith explained about going to the
whip in the stretch. “She’s just so big. You hate for her to gear too much down
and someone comes running. It’s hard to get going again. Other than that,
everything was wonderful.
“I just was happy I got away good today, and once we did that and she got
into her monstrous stride, horses seem to have to take two to her one. She’s a
machine,” he added.
“You know what? Who’s going to go with her?” Mott replied when asked if he
had been concerned by the pace. “We lapped up on On Fire Baby and he backed off
us. I guess he could see we were going to go. She’s just got a big, beautiful
stride and it’s hard for some of them to keep up.”
Authenticity was best of the rest, 1 3/4 lengths up on Centring in third. On
Fire Baby followed another 4 3/4 lengths back in fourth while Open Water trailed
home in last.
“I thought our filly ran super. We were just second best,” trainer Todd
Pletcher praised Authenticity. “I’m really pleased with her effort. She didn’t
lose any respect in defeat.”
“I got a little bit excited at the five-sixteenths pole when we were getting
closer. I thought we had a chance,” admitted Authenticity’s rider, John
Velazquez. “Then at the quarter-pole, Royal Delta reached in and got away again.
We were just second best.”
Royal Delta opened her five-year-old season with an easy five-length win in
the Sabin, prompting Leon and Mott to try their champion once again against the
boys in the Dubai World Cup despite a subpar ninth in the 2012 edition. Just
like her effort last year, the mare never showed any interest running on the
Tapeta, winding up 10th in that March 30 contest, and was given plenty of time
to recover before returning to competition for a title defense bid in the Fleur
de Lis Handicap on June 15.
The Kentucky-bred may have needed more time to recuperate from her
trans-Atlantic voyage, as she threw in a lackluster effort in that nine-furlong
affair, taking second while beaten five lengths. Royal Delta rebounded last out
in the July 20 Delaware Handicap, running away by 10 lengths in the 1 1/4-mile
event.
Campaigned by breeder Palides Investments NV Inc. for her first eight starts,
Royal Delta captured the Alabama and Black-Eyed Susan while placing in the
Coaching Club American Oaks and Beldame Invitational, the latter to eventual
Horse of the Year Havre de Grace, while running for her breeder as a sophomore.
She capped off her three-year-old season with a 2 1/2-length victory in the
Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic, and was shipped cross-country to bring a
sale-topping $8.5 million at the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale just a
couple days later. Leon’s Besilu Stables had the winning bid, which was the most
ever paid for a horse in training at Keeneland November.
Royal Delta enjoyed some down time over the winter, during which she was
honored as the champion three-year-old filly of 2011, before returning in the
2012 Sabin. While her performances in that Gulfstream race and Dubai weren’t
very encouraging, her connections’ faith in their star filly was redeemed when
she romped by eight lengths in the Fleur de Lis.
The Kentucky-bred continued her winning ways with a gutsy neck score in last
year’s Del ‘Cap, then suffered her only other loss of 2012 when second in the
Personal Ensign. She rounded out her four-year-old campaign with a 9 1/2-length
triumph in the Beldame and easy title defense in the Ladies’ Classic to become
just the second two-time winner of that latter race.
Eclipse Award voters once again honored Royal Delta for her accomplishments,
this time naming her the champion older female of 2012.
According to Mott, Royal Delta will likely continue on the same path she
followed last year by competing in the September 28 Beldame at Belmont Park next
out.
The aptly named “Royal” Delta is merely continuing the tradition of her
black-type rich family. She is a daughter of the A.P. Indy mare Delta Princess, who would
capture six stakes, including three Grade 3 contests, during her time on track
while racking up nearly $750,000 in earnings. Delta Princess is herself out of
Group 2 victress Lyphard’s Delta, who would go on in the breeding shed to
produce Grade/Group 1 winners Biondetti and Indy Five Hundred.
Royal Delta’s third dam is Proud Delta, who was honored as champion handicap
mare in 1976 and, in addition to Lyphard’s Delta, also foaled that one’s full
brother in Grade 3 hero and sire Proud Debonair.
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