Saratoga Springs, NY (Sports Network) – Odds-on favorite Royal Delta kicked away from her four rivals to register a commanding victory Sunday in the $600,000 Personal Ensign Handicap at Saratoga Race Course.<\/p>\n
Royal Delta, ridden by Mike Smith, took over the lead in the 1 1\/8-mile race along the backstretch from pacesetter On Fire Baby. The 1-2 favorite began to open her advantage around the final turn and drove away from the field to avenge last year’s defeat.<\/p>\n
Trained by Bill Mott, Royal Delta posted a 4 1\/2-length victory over Authenticity followed by Centring, On Fire Baby and Open Water. Last year, she lost in the Personal Ensign as the 7-10 favorite, dropping a half-length decision to Love and Pride.<\/p>\n
Royal Delta covered the distance in 1:48.34 on a fast track.<\/p>\n
“I just was happy I got away good today, and once we did that and she got into her monstrous stride; horses seem to have to take two (strides) to her one,” said Hall of Fame jockey. “She’s a machine. Down the lane, she got to looking around the track a little bit, so I got after her just a little to keep her going.”<\/p>\n
Owned by Besilu Stables, Royal Delta adds $360,000 to her earnings. The two- time Eclipse Award winner has lifetime earnings of $4,611,126 with 12 wins in 20 starts.<\/p>\n
“When she comes with her ‘A’ game, that’s what you expect,” said Mott. “She was just good. She was good last time. Mike said she was strong and felt great.”<\/p>\n
Smith previously won the Personal Ensign aboard Clear Mandate in 1997. In 1994, Mott saddled Link River to victory.<\/p>\n
The mare was coming off a 10 3\/4-length victory July 20 in the Delaware Handicap, her second straight in the race. Royal Delta had a second-place finish as the 3-10 favorite in the Fleur de Lis on June 15 at Churchill Downs.<\/p>\n
In her first race of the year, Royal Delta posted a five-length victory in the Sabin at Gulfstream Park. On March 30, the mare finished a disappointing 10th in the Dubai World Cup.<\/p>\n
The 5-year-old mare won the Eclipse Award as champion older female of 2012 after claiming the 2011 Eclipse as champion 3-year-old filly and has won the last two runnings of the Ladies’ Classic.<\/p>\n
The Personal Ensign is a Breeders’ Cup “Win and You’re In” event which gives Royal Delta, as if it mattered, an automatic spot in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff on Nov. 1 at Santa Anita.<\/p>\n
Royal Delta returned $3.10, $2.10 and $2.10. Authenticity paid $2.40 and $2.10, and Centring paid $2.80 to show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saratoga Springs, NY (Sports Network) – Odds-on favorite Royal Delta kicked away from her four rivals to register a commanding victory Sunday in the $600,000 Personal Ensign Handicap at Saratoga Race Course. Royal Delta, ridden by Mike Smith, took over the lead in the 1 1\/8-mile race along the backstretch from pacesetter On Fire Baby. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[330],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9741,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9712\/revisions\/9741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}