Lady Aurelia seeks repeat win in Giant's Causeway

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Another spring, another appearance at Keeneland as a springboard to bigger things for Lady Aurelia. Lady Aurelia is favored in the $100,000 Giant’s Causeway Stakes on Saturday and is looking to bounce back from a disappointing end to last season’s traveling show.

Last year, Lady Aurelia won the Giant’s Causeway by three lengths – despite losing a hind shoe – as a prep for the Royal Ascot meeting in England, where she defeated older males in the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes. She later finished second by a nose to Marsha in the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes. Trainer Wesley Ward said a similar summer campaign is in the cards for Lady Aurelia.

“We’re going right back in the [King’s Stand] if all’s in good order,” Ward said. “As far as everything I see, she’s bigger and stronger than she’s ever been.”

Lady Aurelia first introduced herself to the racing world at the 2016 Keeneland spring meet, where she rolled by 7 1/2 lengths in a track-record performance for 4 1/2 furlongs in her debut. The Scat Daddy filly then had a productive summer in Europe, winning the Group 2 Queen Mary at Royal Ascot and the Group 1 Prix Morny in France and finishing third in the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes in England. She earned a Cartier Award as Europe’s champion 2-year-old filly.

Lady Aurelia was last seen finishing 10th in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint last November at Del Mar. After a winter freshening, the filly resumed training in Florida before rejoining Ward at his Kentucky base, where she has been working steadily. She set foot on the Keeneland turf course for the first time this year last Friday, breezing five furlongs on yielding ground in 1:02.20 in company with Con Te Partiro, also a stakes winner at Royal Ascot last year. Earlier this year she worked several times at Turfway and at the farm of co-owner Stonestreet Stables, Ward said.

“Great, super,” Ward said of her most recent work. “She did everything we wanted. . . . Looks like she’s fresh and ready to go.”

Lady Aurelia drew post 8 in the field of 10 for Saturday’s race. She will be ridden by John Velazquez, who has been aboard her three times, notably in last year’s Giant’s Causeway and King’s Stand.

Lady Aurelia’s chief competition figures to be Morticia, who has also shown an affinity for Keeneland. The Rusty Arnold trainee won the Grade 3 Franklin County last fall going the same 5 1/2-furlong distance as the Giant’s Causeway, and overall, she is 5 for 6 at the trip. She also finished second to eventual Grade 1 winner La Coronel in the Grade 3 Appalachian Stakes at the 2017 Keeneland spring meet. Mortica finished second in the Captiva Island Stakes at Gulfstream to start her 2018 season.

Jennifer Lynnette won the Grade 3 Royal North Stakes last July at Woodbine and was fourth in the Captiva Island in her first start since then. Triple Chelsea won two stakes sprinting on turf at the recently concluded Fair Grounds meet.