Saturday’s $800,000, Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Stakes Presented by Dixiana highlights the second weekend of live racing at Keeneland’s 2025 Fall Meet, featuring a competitive field of nine 3-year-old fillies.
Lush Lips is coming off a runner-up performance in the Del Mar Oaks Presented by Keeneland Sales going 1 1/18 miles on turf (the same conditions as the QE II) back in August, and he returns for the red-hot Brendan Walsh stable with Tyler Gaffalione retaining the mount. Laurelin is the 5-2 morning line favorite in this race and she’s been perfect from five career starts including back-to-back stakes wins in the Penn Oaks and Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Oaks Invitational Stakes last time out where she earned a career-best 102 Equibase Speed Figure. After scratching from the First Lady Stakes at Keeneland last week, Simmering will be making her North American debut in the QE II for trainer Ollie Sangster, who will also be making his first start in the states. Daisy Flyer comes into this race with a hefty 20-1 morning line following a tough start in the Blackwood Dueling Grounds Oaks Invitational Stakes at Kentucky Downs. After putting forth some valiant efforts recently against graded stakes company in New York, Opulent Restraint is still trying to secure the first win of her 3-year-old campaign for trainer Chad Brown. Candy Quest has been steadily improving since April and is fresh off a career-best performance were she earned a 104 Equibase Speed Figure in the Dueling Grounds Oaks. Destino d’Oro was the odds-on post-time favorite for the Dueling Grounds Oaks and finished sixth behind Fionn and Candy Quest. In her start prior to that, Destino d’Oro dominated the Pucker Up Stakes by 3 ¾ lengths and will get a jockey change Saturday to Irad Ortiz Jr. Will Then also ran in the Del Mar Oaks last time out, finishing fifth behind Velocity and Lush Lips by just 1 ¾ lengths. Frankie Dettori was aboard for her career debut and will be back aboard for the first time since that race. Fionn drew the outside post in the QE II; she comes in fresh off a win in the Dueling Grounds Oaks where she earned her fourth consecutive triple-digit Equibase figure for trainer Brad Cox, with Flavien Prat retaining the mount in the QE II.
Analysis and Main Contenders:
Fionn, an exceptionally talented filly by Twirling Candy, has never finished out of the money in eight career starts, recording six wins, a second, and a third. She posted her first win by 4 ¼ lengths in her second career start in a turf route at Fair Grounds in December 2024 and hasn’t looked back since, leading all 3-year-old fillies by earnings in 2025. Her only defeat this year came with a third-place finish in the Appalachian Stakes Presented by Japan Racing Association at Keeneland going a mile on the turf, which is shorter than her preferred distances as she’s a perfect 3-for-3 at 1 1/16 miles and 2-for-2 at the QE II’s 1 1/8-mile trip on the grass. Following the Appalachian, she broke through as a graded stakes winner in the 1 1/8-mile Regret Stakes at Churchill Downs, earning a 106 Equibase figure. Her most impressive effort came next in the Belmont Oaks Invitational Stakes, where she narrowly nosed out Nitrogen, a standout filly with five graded stakes wins across turf and dirt, to notch her first Grade 1 victory while repeating a 106 Equibase figure. After a two-month freshening, Fionn returned with another sharp performance in the Dueling Grounds Oaks at Kentucky Downs, stretching out to 1 5/16 miles on turf and earning a 105 figure for her half-length win. That 105 ranks as the highest last-out Equibase Speed Figure of any filly in the Queen Elizabeth II field, and horses with the highest last-out Equibase figure in graded stakes have won at a 27% clip from 583 starts over the past year. Brad Cox and Flavien Prat, the leading trainer and jockey by earnings in North America in 2025, have teamed up to win at a 32% rate from 118 starts in all races this year, and they’ve won at a 25% clip in graded stakes over the past three seasons. Over the last 45 days, Cox and Prat have teamed up on horses that have won four of eight turf routes. Fionn checks every box and appears poised for another top-level performance as she seeks her second Grade 1 victory.
Laurelin is the lone undefeated filly in the field and the well-deserving morning-line favorite as she’s gone 5-for-5 to start her career including the Saratoga Oaks Invitational last time out by 1 ¾ lengths, where she earned a career-best 102 Equibase Speed Figure. Three of her wins were held at a mile on turf; however, she proved both in her career debut and especially in the 1 3/16-mile Saratoga Oaks that stretching out past a mile is not an issue. Kendrick Carmouche retains the mount on Laurelin from that race, and he has been aboard the filly for four out of her five career starts. Carmouche has not had a start at Keeneland this meet, and considering he’s only two made starts over the last five years at Keeneland, it is a great sign he is leaving New York to ride this talented filly for trainer Graham Motion. Motion is a well-respected trainer, especially over the turf, and over the past year he is winning at 29% from 52 starts with horses who made their last start on turf. Laurelin has made increases in Equibase Speed Figures through every start of her career and will be tough to beat in her first Grade 1 start Saturday.
Lush Lips enters off a runner-up finish in the Del Mar Oaks at 1 1/8 miles on turf, rallying late to finish just a half-length behind Velocity. Only one filly from that race, sixth-place finisher Slick, has returned to run since, and she won her next start at Santa Anita Park. Lush Lips did not win her first two career in Ireland and finished ninth in her North American debut in a maiden special weight race at Kentucky Downs last September. After switching to the Brendan Walsh barn, she immediately turned things around, cruising to a seven-length maiden victory on the all-weather track at Gulfstream Park going a mile and seventy yards, and then to start a 2025 campaign notched a gate-to-wire score in a 1 1/16-mile allowance optional claiming race on the Gulfstream turf. Lush Lips subsequently recorded a pair of sharp runner-up efforts behind Nitrogen in both the Florida Oaks and Edgewood Stakes Presented by Accenture before breaking through with a dominant 3 ¾ length win in the Tepin Stakes at Churchill Downs, where she earned a career-best (and best-in-this field) 107 Equibase Speed Figure racing a mile on turf. Despite the runner-up result in her most recent start, this filly has been remarkably consistent since joining the Walsh barn, never finishing out of the money. Historically, horses coming off a second-place finish at the Grade 1 level have won 29% of their next graded stakes attempts over the past year (94 starts). With Tyler Gaffalione aboard and the Walsh barn in top form, Lush Lips deserves serious respect.
The rest of the field, with their best Equibase Speed Figure in similar races, is Simmering (n/a), Daisy Flyer (101), Opulent Restraint (104), Candy Quest (104), Destino d’Oro (105), and Will Then (101).
Win Contenders in Preference Order:
Fionn
Laurelin
Lush Lips
