Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup should decide things

There is no Eclipse Award for three-year-old turf fillies. If the powers that be were ever going to create such an award, 2016 would be an ideal year to start. The division is both deep and classy. But who would win this year’s championship, if it was a thing? The answer can likely be found in Saturday’s 33rd running of the $500,000 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup. The field for the nine-furlong, Grade 1 test at Keeneland is absolutely loaded.

Gary Barber, Michael Ambler and Windways Farm’s Catch a Glimpse was the best juvenile turf filly in the land last year, bar none. In fact, she was the Horse of the Year in Canada on the strength of three consecutive wins to close her first season, including a convincing score in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. The pretty daughter of City Zip kept her winning ways going with five consecutive stakes wins this year, culminating with a half-length win in the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks Invitational in July.

Clearly, the Mark Casse trained filly is the leader of the division, but things have tightened up just a little bit of late. Her eight-race winning streak came to an end in her last race, when narrowly defeated by her new rival.

That rival being the Jimmy Toner trained, Time and Motion. A later developing type than Catch a Glimpse, the daughter of Tapit has also been near perfect in 2016. A winner of three straight, including a pair of stakes races in New York, she had her winning streak broken at the hands of her rival, when she finished a fast closing second in the Belmont Oaks. Going after the Breeders’ Cup winner again in their most recent start, Time and Motion this time powered by to win by a neck in the Grade 2 Lake Placid at Saratoga.

While the leading pair, to be ridden by Florent Geroux (Catch a Glimpse) and John Velazquez (Time and Motion), are deservedly the ones to beat in Saturday’s feature, the QE II is far from lacking in quality challengers.

Chief among the most likely to upset the budding rivalry will be the Shug McGaughey trained, On Leave, and Larkin Armstrong’s Harmonize. The former comes in to her biggest test to date on a winning streak of her own, having accounted for four consecutive turf wins. Most recently, the daughter of War Front was much the best in the grade 2 Sands Point at Belmont Park.

Harmonize, meanwhile, also comes in off a high note. Three times beaten by Catch a Glimpse, the Scat Daddy filly headed west last time for the biggest win of her young career, when she kicked it in late to just get up in the Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks. She also boasts a stakes win over the course, having taken the Grade 3 Jessamine Stakes last fall.

The rest of the fantastic field for the QE II consists of; the multiple stakes winner from California, Stays in Vegas; Hawksmoor, a multiple group stakes winner in Europe, the romping winner of the Dueling Ground Oaks, Try Your Luck; the impressive winner of the San Clemente, Mokat, and the longshot, Queen Caroline.