HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Two 2-year-old fillies, Celtic Dispute and Liberty Rings, earned automatic berths in one of the six juvenile stakes to be decided at next month’s Royal Ascot meet after registering victories Saturday at Gulfstream Park in the $125,000 Royal Palm Juvenile and its filly counterpart, the $125,000 Royal Palm Juvenile Fillies stakes. Celtic Dispute defeated another filly, the heavily favored Skara Brae, by a neck to capture the open division of the two stakes, the five-furlong Royal Palm. Liberty Rings led from start to finish to upset the Juvenile Fillies, holding a 1 1/4-length advantage at the wire over the late-striding Pros and Cons, giving Nicholas Palmer the first stakes winner of his training career.      Celtic Dispute will send her trainer, Patrick Biancone, back to Ascot for a second straight year with a daughter of Leinster. Biancone won the 2025 Royal Palm Juvenile Fillies with Lennilu, who used the race as a steppingstone five weeks later to her third-place finish in the Group 3 Queen Mary. Celtic Dispute, who finished a tiring second behind Boots debuting over the main track on April 16, prompted the pace of Skara Brae from the outset.  She engaged the leader entering the stretch, was bumped briefly by that rival near the furlong grounds, then narrowly prevailed under vigorous urging by jockey Luis Saez. :: Play Gulfstream Park with confidence! DRF Past Performances, Picks, and Clocker Reports are available now.  Skara Brae, a very popular and easy winner of her only previous start at Keeneland, was much the best of the others, finishing 4 1/2 lengths in front of the tiring Braums Run.  Omaha Forty was a promising fourth after breaking well behind the field and racing very wide throughout. Celtic Dispute, who along with Liberty Rings also earned a $25,000 travel stipend to Royal Ascot, completed the distance over a very firm course in 56.17 seconds and paid $7.60.   “She had a little setback before the first race, missed two works and was very green, but ran very well,” Biancone noted when asked about Celtic Dispute’s previous start. “We knew she’d improve a lot on the turf.” Biancone said he ran Celtic Dispute in the open division rather than against her own kind in the Juvenile Fillies because her owners, Dew Sweepers, had another horse, the odds-on favorite Pot’s Right, for that event. “I left it up to the owners to pick which races to run in, they wanted to put Pot’s Right in with the fillies, so we ran against the boys,” Biancone said.  Like Celtic Dispute, Liberty Rings also came into her stakes debut a maiden after finishing third making her debut against colts in a maiden special weight dash over the main track on April 19. “We felt like it might have been a little bit too soon when we started her in her first race, but we were really targeting this race all along,” Palmer said.  “We weren’t sure about the turf, but she looks like a grass horse, big and scopey and with a large foot. So we figured it was worth a shot.” Unlike in her debut, Liberty Rings quickly sprinted to the front, turned back a bid by Sass Sass in early stretch, then remained clear under strong handling by jockey Miguel Vasquez. Pros and Cons finished best of all down the middle of the track to finish second while making her career debut in the stakes.  Pot’s Right could not make it a sweep of the Royal Palm stakes for her owners, finishing a disappointing fourth after breaking a bit slow and racing wide throughout. Liberty Rings, a daughter of Awesome Slew owned by Teresa and David Palmer, covered the distance in 56.68 and paid $17.60. “I wasn’t surprised she made the lead today. I was surprised when she wasn’t loose on the lead the first time,” Palmer said. “But I think that race really tightened the screws and got her focused.” Palmer said he was uncertain at this point whether a trip to Royal Ascot would be in the cards for Liberty Rings.  “This was a career-defining moment for me, we’ve been trying really hard to win a stakes, so this is a big deal for us. And I want to take the filly to Ascot,” Palmer said. “Hopefully I’ll be able to talk them (his parents) into going.” :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.