Euro Charline trying for another first in Beverly D.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Euro Charline already has made history in the Beverly D., having become the first 3-year-old to win the Grade 1 race when doing so last year. Now, Team Valor International has its sights set on her making more history Saturday at Arlington Park.

No horse has ever won back-to-back runnings of the Beverly D. since the race was first run as a major event in 1989, but Euro Charline figures to be favored to do so when going postward under Jose Lezcano in the $700,000 Beverly D., a 1 3/16-mile turf race for which 10 fillies and mares were expected when entries were drawn Wednesday.

“This could be the highlight of the year once again,” Team Valor president Barry Irwin said. “Her last race was just unbelievable, and she’s coming into this the right way.”

Euro Charline, a bay filly by Myboycharlie, defeated six Grade 1 winners in rallying to win the 2014 Beverly D. by three-quarters of a length over Stephanie’s Kitten as a 10-1 shot for trainer Marco Botti and jockey Ryan Moore. With the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup as her next goal, she was kept on American soil with Todd Pletcher at Belmont Park, but a minor setback foiled those plans.

“It really wasn’t anything major, although it scared the life out of me,” Irwin recalled. “She only had to miss 10 days or so.”

Shortly afterward, Irwin decided to make Dubai the long-term goal and sent her back to Botti in Newmarket. Facing males in the $6 million Dubai Turf on March 28, Euro Charline put in a solid effort, finishing fourth behind Solow, who has since risen to the rank of Europe’s top miler.

Euro Charline then was supposed to run in the Duke of Cambridge Stakes at Royal Ascot in June, but in an incident of high controversy, she was declared out of the race when, still behind the starting gate, jockey Frankie Dettori and the Ascot starter “couldn’t agree on how to best get her into the gate,” is the polite way Irwin described the scratch.

Botti was able to run Euro Charline back at Newmarket on July 10 in the Group 1 Falmouth, and the filly responded with a runner-up finish, beaten just a length by Amazing Maria.

“Those were world-class fillies she ran against last time,” Irwin said early this week from his home in Lexington, Ky., after spending the last three weeks at Saratoga. “Amazing Maria might well be the best turf filly in the world. I can’t think of anything that could beat her right now.

“She ran an incredible race just to be second in there. Like most European fillies, she prefers to be covered up, but that just didn’t happen for her. She dropped back to fourth or fifth when the running began, and she really dug in to come back to be second. It really was something to see.”

As happened last year, Euro Charline was accompanied to the United States by the trainer’s wife, Lucia Botti, who was aboard the filly when out Tuesday morning for an easy canter and gallop at Arlington in their first morning since clearing quarantine. Euro Charline was among a Euro contingent on an overseas Saturday flight into Chicago.

“Marco is staying home again this year,” Irwin said. “It’s really no big deal. There are any number of top European trainers whose wives are almost interchangeable with the trainer – Aidan O’Brien, Andre Fabre. We’re just hoping for the same results we got last year.”

Irwin said he “had to talk Marco into” running in the Beverly D. because Botti preferred to stay instead in Europe in prepping for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf in late October at Keeneland.

“I thought the timing was right, and you never know how a filly’s form will hold as you get later into the year,” Irwin said.

By winning the Beverly D., Team Valor joined Juddmonte Farms and Godolphin Racing as the only owners to win both the Arlington Million and Beverly D. Team Valor won the 1993 Million with Star of Cozzene.

Irwin said he isn’t particularly frustrated with how things have gone in the year that has passed.

“Things happen,” he said. “Sure, you would’ve thought we’d have gotten more done with her in that time, but I think if we can repeat Saturday, that’ll all be forgotten. It’d sure be one heck of an accomplishment if she could be the first repeat winner in race history.”