Royal Spa runs to training; handles two turns with Shawnee victory
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Trainer Rodolphe Brisset said earlier this week that the 5-year-old mare Royal Spa had never breezed as well as in her two most recent works, and on Saturday at Churchill Downs she ran to her training, capturing the Grade 3, $275,000 Shawnee Stakes by 1 1/4 lengths.
Royal Spa earlier this spring never had won a stakes race and now she’s won two in a row, adding a graded victory to her résumé after capturing the $100,000 Heavenly Cause last month at Laurel Park.
Royal Spa led from the start in the one-turn mile Heavenly Cause, but on Saturday, Flavien Prat rated his mount from sixth around the first of two turns and down the backstretch. Royal Spa had made only two of her 17 starts in two-turn races and had lost both convincingly, but she relaxed beautifully for Prat, traveling smoothly down the back straight as longshot Wild Bout Hilary, tracked by second choice Gin Gin, set solid splits of 23.51 and 47.06.
After passing the half-mile pole, going into the far turn, Prat gave Royal Spa her cue and got an immediate, affirmative response. Moving sharply on the outside, Royal Spa picked up the leaders before the quarter pole, and after Gin Gin had taken the measure of Wild Bout Hilary, Royal Spa reeled her in at the furlong grounds. Gin Gin stayed on bravely and tried to fight back, and Royal Spa barely increased her advantage – if she did at all – through the last half-furlong, but the lead she took in midstretch held and Royal Spa was home.
Gin Gin finished 2 1/2 lengths ahead of third-place Alpine Princess, who tried to follow Royal Spa’s move turning into the homestretch but could not keep up. Where’s My Ring, the 2-1 favorite, stalked the pace from inside and came up empty, checking in sixth.
Royal Spa ran 1 1/16 miles on a fast track in 1:42.20 and paid $28.78. Brisset trains the mare for her breeder, Breffni Farm, and was correct in his assertion that Royal Spa’s first two route tries, in the Demoiselle as a 2-year-old and the Fantasy as a 3-year-old, probably didn’t represent her capability in two-turn racing. Brisset’s horse, a late bloomer whose arrow still points up, went out and proved him right.
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