Crown Queen seeks fourth straight turf win in QEII

Crown Queen is already a graded winner thanks to Saratoga’s Lake Placid (NYRA/Adam Coglianese Photography) Besilu Stables’ Crown Queen — a half-sister to a multiple champion and two-time Breeders’ Cup winner Royal Delta who earned more than $4.8 million — will make her next start in Saturday’s Grade 1, $500,000 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland. Crown Queen has been showing off her own talents, winning three consecutive races on turf, most recently the August 16 Lake Placid at Saratoga. The three-year-old Smart Strike filly has made five starts, all on the grass, and has earned $293,000. Rodolphe Brisset, trainer Bill Mott’s assistant at Keeneland, was asked to compare Crown Queen to her accomplished older half-sister, Royal Delta, another Mott trainee. “Physically, totally different,” said Brisset, who was Royal Delta’s exercise rider. “But I get a lot of similarities when galloping (Crown Queen): covering a lot of ground, long stride. Crown Queen is more like (her dam) Delta Princess. Her mother was not easy to be around.” Crown Queen, who has been at Keeneland for about 1 1/2 weeks, has “actually settled very good since she’s been here,” noted Brisset, who credited Mott’s team in Saratoga for its work with the filly.

Royal Delta won 11 races on dirt and one on the synthetic Polytrack, but Crown Queen prefers
the turf like her dam. Also trained by Mott, Delta Princess, by A.P. Indy, made
all but one of her 30 starts on the surface. She won 11 races on the grass,
including six stakes. Three of those wins came in Grade 3 events.

“We found out very quickly — the way she’s made and the way she was breezing
at two — we kind of knew she was going to be a turf horse,”
Brisset said about Crown Queen.

Crown Queen was a weanling when owner Ben Leon Jr.
purchased her for $1.6 million at
Keeneland’s 2011 November Breeding Stock Sale.
At the same sale, he spent $8.5 million for Royal Delta and in 2012 raced her to
her second consecutive win in the Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic. Royal Delta
was the champion older mare in 2012 and 2013.

John Velazquez will ride Crown Queen, who will break from
post 8 in the field of nine fillies.

Keeneland racing analyst Tom Leach conducted interviews with connections of
three horses entered in the QEII — Dave Rock, assistant to trainer Graham Motion, on
Daring Dancer;
jockey Joel Rosario on
Minorette;
and Trainer Vicki Oliver on
Personal Diary.

Bet Horseracing Free Online at TwinSpires.com