Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup could produce Breeders' Cup contenders
The lone Grade 1 race in North America this weekend – Saturday’s $500,000 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland – is among the most prestigious grass races for 3-year-old fillies. But it doesn’t carry the Breeders’ Cup significance of races such as the Rodeo Drive and Flower Bowl, races for older mares that serve as the primary U.S. preps for the BC Filly and Mare Turf, which will be run Nov. 1 at Santa Anita.
For many of the fillies going in the Queen Elizabeth II, this is the end-of-season goal as planned by their connections – not the Breeders’ Cup, in which they would have to venture outside their age group. The Queen Elizabeth II also is not a Win and You’re In race, a contest that provides the winner with an expenses-paid berth in the Breeders’ Cup.
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One prominent filly, the Beverly D. Stakes winner Euro Charline, had been expected to use the race to prep for the Breeders’ Cup, but she went to the sidelines this week and will not go in the Queen Elizabeth II. Of the notable fillies still being pointed for the race – Aurelia’s Belle, Ball Dancing, Crown Queen, Daring Dancer, Minorette, Personal Diary, Sea Queen, and Sistas Stroll – Minorette is the only one of the group who already has won a Win and You’re In contest, having won the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks on “good” turf at 1 1/4 miles in July. She then ran last of four in the Grade 2 Lake Placid Stakes at Saratoga, beaten 1 1/2 lengths.
Working in her favor in Saturday’s race is the likelihood of a wet course. Rain is expected later in the week in Lexington, Ky.
Following Saturday’s Queen Elizabeth II, the next major filly and mare turf stakes race in North America is the Grade 1 E.P. Taylor on Oct. 19 at Woodbine – but due to its placement less than two weeks before the Breeders’ Cup, horsemen typically bypass running horses in both races.
Deceptive Vision, the winner of the Grade 2 Canadian, is expected to start in the E.P. Taylor rather than the Breeders’ Cup – though her connections have not eliminated the possibility of changing plans.