Queen’s Award Enhances Value at Keeneland

Queen’s Award picked the right time to get her first stakes victory on Friday when she sprang a $63.80 upset in the Buffalo Trace Franklin County.

“I’d say her value went up,” trainer Eduardo Caramori said Saturday morning of the 6-year-old mare who is cataloged in Keeneland’s November Breeding Stock Sale as a racing or broodmare prospect.

“I wouldn’t mind keeping her in training,” Caramori said with a laugh. “She’s only 6 and has not run that often and is sound.”

Caramori said Queen’s Award came out of the race in good order and returned to The Thoroughbred Center after the race.

Queen’s Award gave jockey Kent Desormeaux his 23rd Keeneland stakes victory in a run that dates to 1996 with Afternoon Deelites in the Commonwealth Breeders’ Cup (G2).

“That was a pleasant surprise,” Desormeaux said Saturday morning. “I thought she would do well but not that well. She ran well for me the one time I rode her at Arlington and she just got beat. Eduardo does a good job with his horses.”

The stakes victory was the first for Desormeaux since September 2012 when he guided Politicallycorrect to the winner’s circle in the Oklahoma Derby. Desmoreaux’s most recent Keeneland stakes victory came aboard Dullahan in the 2012 Toyota Blue Grass (G1).

“I found a lot of friends yesterday,” Desormeaux said. “I must have had 60 text messages since the race. To win at Keeneland is even better.”

The 43-year-old Racing Hall of Fame rider from Maurice, La., plans to ride at Churchill Downs after the Keeneland meet and then go to Fair Grounds for the winter.

“That is the plan for right now unless I get redirected to Miami,” Desormeaux said. “I never have ridden regularly at Fair Grounds. After I got out of school, I rode five weeks at Evangeline Downs and then five weeks at Louisiana Downs and then it was off to Maryland.”

Queen’s Award collared 2012 race winner Madame Giry in deep stretch to win by a half-length.

“That was a tough beat, but when they run like that you can’t complain,” trainer Cam Gambolati said of Madame Giry. “She seems fine this morning and lives to fight another day.”

Gambolati said Madame Giry would leave Keeneland Sunday to return to Gulfstream Park.

“There is nothing down there for her until probably December, so she will get a little break,” Gambolati said. “It would be ideal to run her a couple of times and then come back here in the spring (for the Giant’s Causeway).”