USA: 24 hours after Love Reigns booked her ticket for Royal Ascot at Keeneland, her Wesley Ward-trained stablemate Twilight Gleaming did the same as she coasted to victory on Saturday’s card at the Lexington venue.
Sent off favourite for the Giant’s Causeway, a Listed race over 5½f, Twilight Gleaming easily assumed command on the far turn and barely needed prodding by Irad Ortiz to make a winning seasonal debut.
The four-year-old daughter of National Defense scored by a length and a half over late-running Querobin Dourada – in a stakes record time of 1m01.74s.
Twilight Gleaming won the G1 Prix Morny in France before landing the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint at Del Mar as a two-year-old in 2021. Last seen coming fourth behind fellow Ascot contender Caravel at Keeneland in October, she is in the same ownership as Friday’s Keeneland winner Love Reigns, both fillies carrying the colours of owner Barbara Banke’s Stonestreet Stables.
The year-younger Love Reigns was earmarked for the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot but Ward may now be shuffling his pack. “Both fillies certainly look like they would do really, really well in the King’s Stand,” said the trainer, who has 12 Royal Ascot wins to his name.
“Of course we’ll probably separate them,” he went on. “There’s a couple of different races there for three-year-olds as well as the King’s Stand, which is three and up, that Lady Aurelia won. We’ll get home and assess it with the team. To have a stakes record in this race – there’s been a lot of great fillies that have run in it – that really says a lot.”
Saturday’s race has been a stepping stone to Royal Ascot for high-class Stonestreet fillies in the past, notably Lady Aurelia and Campanelle.
Twilight Gleaming will be returning to the royal meeting, having run well to finish second to Quick Suzy in a 21-runner Queen Mary as a two-year-old.
After Saturday’s card, where he landed a double, Ward led the way among trainers at the the current Keeneland spring meet at his home track with seven winners.
Reflecting on Love Reigns and Twilight Gleaming, he added: “Both of them came from Ian Brennan down at Barbara Banke’s farm in Ocala and he had them really ready to go.
“We talked about it before they got here, so I just kind of backed off of them once they got here, and once they got to Kentucky out of the heat there in Ocala, they just started to blossom. I gave them a couple of easy works and brought them over here, and away we go.”
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‘She’s a special filly’: Love Reigns set for Wesley Ward’s Royal Ascot team after comeback success
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