Royal Palm Juvenile Fillies winner Liberty Rings (Awesome Slew) will skip Royal Ascot and instead point towards the Debutante Stakes at Churchill Downs June 28, her trainer Nick Palmer told Gulfstream media Wednesday.
“I had a family member pass away in the interim and I didn't want to miss her service, and it takes a lot out of your horses to go over there. The purses aren't really anything spectacular,” Palmer said. “Although, for me personally, for my career, it would have been awesome to go and to network and to be able to have a horse in the race, but I anticipate being able to have another chance to do that in the future.”
Liberty Rings registered a front-running 1 1/4-length victory under Miguel Vasquez in the Royal Palm Juvenile Fillies, a race which earned her an automatic entry to the Royal Meet.
“I didn't know how she was going to take to the turf, because I'd never breezed her on the grass and she's not bred for the grass,” Palmer said. “My thinking and Miguel's thinking was: 'Let's just get to the lead and try to make them catch us.' So that's what we did.”
The six-furlong Debutante will be contested over the main track at Churchill.
“I'm feeling very confident,” Palmer said. “All the works she's been doing the past couple of weeks have just been routine maintenance works, because there's such a stretch of time between her last race and the Debutante. So I kind of let her come down a little bit and now I'm bringing her back up. She's going to work in company with another horse of mine, Serac, and they're both going to Kentucky. Serac is going to go in the [June 27] American Derby and Liberty Rings is going in the Debutante.”
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