Invaders Abashiri, Kensington Lane loom large in G1 Belmont Oaks
A clash of quality turf sophomore fillies from each side of the Atlantic is set for Saturday's Grade 1, $600,000 Belmont Oaks over 1 1/8 miles of Saratoga Race Course’s inner turf course. A race won in four of its past eight editions by European invaders, this year’s renewal is topped by a visiting pair from connections with proven stateside records at the top level taking on an ascendant home team.
Chief among the friendly infiltrators is Godolphin homebred Abashiri, a lightly raced daughter of Frankel trained by Charlie Appleby. A sister to 2024 Grade 1 New York beaten favorite English Rose out of Group 1 Prix Saint-Alary winner Sobetsu, Abashiri broke her maiden impressively on debut at Kempton last November over one mile on synthetic, besting subsequent Listed stakes winner Venetia.
Regarded highly enough to resurface in the classic Group 1 1000 Guineas in just her second run and go off at 8-1, she checked in fifth of 19 runners, four lengths astern victorious True Love and one length to the good of champion Precise, who has won two Group 1 races since. One of those races was the Group 1 Irish 1000 Guineas on May 24, in which Abashiri finished a game third at 6-1 third-choice odds. All of her previous runs have been at one mile.
Precise, considered virtually unanimously to be Europe’s top 3-year-old filly, would go on to win Royal Ascot’s Group 1 Coronation Stakes over True Love, with English 1000 Guineas sixth Touleen splitting the pair. Furthermore, the aforementioned 1000 Guineas at Newmarket has proven a key race, with 11th-place Venetian Sun and eighth-place Spicy Marg going one-two in the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup against the boys at Royal Ascot earlier this month.
Appleby previously brought two fillies to this race with more seasoning, but lower official ratings. Cinderella’s Dream entered with six starts and a 99 rating before her victory in 2024, while 2022 runner-up With The Moonlight had a 107 rating and seven career runs. Abashiri, who will be ridden by William Buick [winner on Cinderella’s Dream] from post 8, is rated 109.
“She’s doing well and her last work went well before shipping,” Appleby said. “If she shows up with the best of her European and Irish Guineas form, I think she’ll be a big player, as long as she travels well and settles in there well enough. Her Irish Guineas form has been franked with the one-two [finishers] going on to Ascot and running well. I’m looking forward to it.”
Medallion Racing, Agave Racing Stable and Trommer’s Kensington Lane ran admirably in the same Irish 1000 Guineas, finishing fifth beaten 5 3/4 lengths for trainer Donnacha O’Brien.
A daughter of Starspangledbanner, sire of 2021 Grade 1 Saratoga Derby winner State Of Rest and 2025 Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf champ Gstaad among his stateside honor roll, the well-bred filly is out of Almost Always, an unraced daughter of the great Galileo and Ramruma, winner of the Group 1 Oaks, Group 1 Irish Oaks and Group 1 Yorkshire Oaks. Well-seasoned with nine starts, Kensington Lane’s best run prior to the Irish 1000 Guineas was a victory in the Group 3 Athasi Stakes at the same one-mile Curragh trip. Rated 103, she will hope to emulate Group 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf-winning stablemate Balantina, also co-owned by Medallion Racing, by scoring big on her stateside debut. Hall of Famer Joel Rosario, winner aboard Minorette in 2014, rides from post 3.
“We were debating on running in the [Group 1] Pretty Polly this past weekend or coming to America and I think getting away from Thundering On, Precise, True Love and some of those horses in Europe was pretty compelling,” said Phillip Shelton, racing manager for Medallion Racing. “We’re also at that point in the season in Europe where there are basically no more 3-year-old fillies-only Grade 1s and we felt like she wants firmer ground and has plenty of positional speed, which can be atypical for a Euro and we feel like she does have a big turn-of-foot.
“In the Irish 1000 Guineas, when the field split and when she started to quicken, she was out by herself for a furlong,” Shelton reflected. “Our rider felt like if anyone was nearer, she would have been closer at the finish. I don’t think she was going to run in the top three, which included Abashiri, but I think we felt with how it played out, we were unlucky. Running around a bend should suit her pretty well, as well as stepping up to nine furlongs. The Pretty Polly is ten furlongs and we thought she would like that, so going nine furlongs at Saratoga should not be a problem for her with plenty of distance in her pedigree.
“We bought her after she won the Group 3, so we paid a premium, but that’s also our model. We buy proven horses and we feel like there’s little downside with her. She’ll run for Donnacha at Saratoga and basically the plan is to send her to Phil D’Amato in California and target the Del Mar Oaks and then target the [Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup] at Keeneland and then the [American Oaks] at Santa Anita. There’s four big Grade 1s in America to try and make her a Grade 1 winner. We always thought she’d suit American racing and Donnacha has the opinion that she should suit it, as well, so we’ll see how she does on Saturday—that’s what makes it fun.”
The American contingent includes a pair of last-out graded stakes winners from Kentucky, led by Frank Ferrogine, Richard Rendina, Nick Coniglio and Greywood Farms’ Faithful Departed, a dynamic winner of the Grade 3 Regret over this nine-furlong distance by 2 1/4 lengths. Trained by Grant Forster, the daughter of dual-surface Grade 1-winner Yoshida and Grade 3-winning turf mare Speed Seeker has improved markedly in recent months, which is typical of Forster’s patient handling.
Boasting a 3-for-7 record, she broke her maiden in January at the Fair Grounds Race Course before finishing second in the Allen Black Cat Lacombe Memorial and a slightly disappointing sixth in Keeneland’s Grade 2 Appalachian before a smart turf allowance victory and her aforementioned Regret - the latter two at Churchill Downs. Jose Ortiz rides from post 4.
“She’s just getting better with every race,” Forster said. “She was kind of a leggy, gangly filly as a 2-year-old and the more we did with her, the better she got. She got some confidence in New Orleans and with each race she gets more experience and steps up and does better. The Keeneland race wasn’t really ideal cutting back to a mile for her. We’re hopeful that if she performs well going back to a mile and an eighth this week that we can come back for the Saratoga Oaks at a mile and three-sixteenths. She’s really come to hand and seems to be stronger and better every day we come to the barn. She’s more comfortable in her body and you could see it when she ran away from some really nice fillies in the Regret.”
One of those she defeated was William K. Werner homebred Storm’s Wake, winner of the Grade 2 Appalachian at Keeneland three starts back before finishing fifth in Churchill Downs’ Grade 2 Edgewood on Kentucky Derby weekend and second in the Regret. Trained by Brian Lynch, she is by his 2017 Grade 1 Belmont Derby winner Oscar Performance and boasts a 3-for-9 record. Dylan Davis rides from post 5.
Speaking of the Edgewood, its decisive winner, Mark Dobbin’s Brendan Walsh-trained Imaginationthelady, comes in as a serious player. The daughter of Not This Time has long been well-regarded, winning the Grade 2 Jessamine last fall in just her second start, following a lucrative maiden win at Kentucky Downs and then finishing fourth in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. Kicking off her season with a good second in the Appalachian, she moved forward nicely to land the Edgewood. Tyler Gaffalione reunites from post 10.
“She’s in good order,” Walsh said. “We have always thought she was going to be a nicer filly with a little age – we knew that, especially after going a mile at Keeneland in the Appalachian, the further she went, the better she’d go. We’re going farther again on Saturday, and her form got franked this week, as well, in the Tepin with that filly of Phil Bauer’s [Edgewood runner-up Tam Tam] winning easily. I think she’s a very good, maturing filly and she’s going into this race in good order. I’m hopeful for a very big second-half of the year with her.”
Whisper Hill Farms’ Just Aloof chased Imaginationthelady home when fourth in both the Edgewood and Appalachian for four-time Belmont Oaks-winning conditioner Chad Brown. With pedigree stamina in spades, being by Justify out of the Group 3-winning Galileo mare Aloof, she looks to improve her 2-for-4 record with the additional real estate when Manny Franco rides from post 1.
Brown-trained stablemate Fitz Right enters a top player to give her conditioner his fifth win in the race, having taken the Grade 2 Wonder Again last out on June 5 at Saratoga, her second New York stakes on the bounce, following a smart victory in the Listed Memories Of Silver in April at Aqueduct Racetrack. Owned by Michael Dubb, William H. Lawrence, The Elkstone Group and Michael Kisber, the Charlatan filly is now 4-for-6 and will be ridden by Flavien Prat, winner of last year’s race aboard Fionn, from post 6.
Repole Stables’ Wonder Again third-place finisher Time to Dream looks to give Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher his first win in the race. Consistently clashing with a few of these, she was seventh in the Edgewood, second in the Grade 3 Florida Oaks and 10th in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. Last summer, she broke her maiden and won Listed P. G. Johnson - both at Saratoga, before a third to Imaginationthelady in the Jessamine. Edgard Zayas rides from post 2.
Another with Breeders’ Cup form is Live Oak Plantation’s Florida homebred Ultimate Love, who went off as the 7-2 favorite in the race and checked in fifth, a half-length astern Imaginationthelady, for trainer Michael Trombetta. Very highly regarded by connections, she won her first three races last year, including Laurel Park’s Selima. Resurfacing this year, for the first time since the Breeders’ Cup, in Laurel Park’s Listed Hilltop on May 15 to commence her season, she just missed by a head. Boasting a stellar pedigree, the 3-for-5 daughter of Curlin is a descendent of third-dam Urban Sea, who begat greats Galileo and Sea The Stars, as well as second dam My Typhoon, winner of the Grade 1 Diana over course and distance. Hall of Famer John Velazquez rides from post 9.
The field is completed by Club Sixty Five Racing’s Argentine Group 1-placed Carmensita, a daughter of 2012 Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic runner-up Treasure Beach, who was third in allowance company on stateside bow on June 6 here for conditioner Horacio De Paz. Second in the Group 1 Enrique Acebal and third in the Group 2 Federico de Alvear - both at San Isidro before relocating to America - she will carry a four-pound southern hemisphere penalty. Ricardo Santana, Jr., rides from post 7.
The Belmont Oaks is slated as Race 7 on Saturday’s 11-race card, which features the Grade 1 Belmont Derby [Race 9], the Grade Suburban presented by Subourbon [Race 8] and the Grade 3 Sanford [Race 5]. First post is 12:35 p.m. Eastern.
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