Oliver Shoots for Keeneland Glory With Personal Diary, Late Spring

Personal Diary can pen some Keeneland history for trainer Vicki Oliver on Saturday when she takes her shot in the 31st running of the $500,000 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Presented by Lane’s End (G1) at 1 1/8 miles on the turf.

A total of nine invited 3-year-old fillies remain under consideration for the race for which entries will be taken Wednesday. While Oliver will be looking for her initial stakes victory here, the trainers who will saddle the other runners all have notched Grade 1 triumphs at Keeneland.

Personal Diary has the credentials to put Oliver in that company as she is the only invitee to the QE II slated to run to enter the race off a Grade 1 victory.

“That was huge,” Oliver said of the filly’s win in the Del Mar Oaks that gave Oliver her first Grade 1 victory. “After that we gave her a little time off, two weeks at the farm, and then brought her back to get ready for this.

“We maybe could have run in the Pucker Up (G3 at Arlington Park on Sept. 13), but that would have been pretty close and with all the shipping back here from California and then to go there.”

Owned by G. Watts Humphrey Jr. and St. George Farm Racing of Ian Banwell, Personal Diary has been no worse than third in her past five races while enduring tough trips. Three weeks before the Del Mar Oaks, she was second in an allowance race at Del Mar that followed her runner-up placing in the Regret (G3) at Churchill Downs.

‘She had trouble here in the spring when (QE II invitee) Sea Queen beat her and then she rallied well in the Regret but had trouble and she had trouble in her first race at Del Mar,” said Oliver, whose husband, Phil, shipped to Del Mar in 2013 to win the Osunitas with Closing Range for St. George Farm Racing.

“Ian loves to race at Del Mar and last year we took three horses out there that we hand-picked,” Oliver said of shipping to California.

Prior to Personal Diary’s run, Oliver will try to strike stakes gold for the same ownership when Late Spring goes to the gate in Wednesday’s 24th running of the $150,000 JPMorgan Chase Jessamine (G3) for 2-year-old fillies going 1 1/16 miles on the grass.

Late Spring was scratched out of a Sunday allowance race in favor of the JPMorgan Chase Jessamine, which is a Win and You’re In race for the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1) to be run Oct. 31 at Santa Anita.

“I had another filly for the Jessamine in Visarno, but she got hurt the other morning,” Oliver said. “So I scratched Late Spring Sunday to run here.”

Late Spring won at first asking by 5 1/4 lengths on the turf at Ellis Park and then finished third as the favorite in her most recent start in the Kentucky Downs Juvenile Fillies.

“I think a lot of her, but when she won her first race I was really surprised,” Oliver said. “Because of the main track renovation here this summer, you couldn’t train all that much on the training track with the tight turns and I was not sure she was fit enough. I was looking to get a good five-eighths work in her. She was very green, but she just took off once she realized she was in a race.

“At Kentucky Downs, the turf was real soft and (jockey) Brice (Blanc) said she just did not get hold of the course.”

Alan Garcia will be aboard for the first time Wednesday in the JPMorgan Chase Jessamine.

 

Source: Keeneland Communications