A field of 24 juvenile fillies is expected for the five-furlong Queen Mary Stakes (GII), a race named in honor of the British Queen Mary, best known as the consort of King George V and the grandmother of the current Queen Elizabeth II.
Lady Aurelia captured this event a year ago en route to a French Group 1 victory and this year her trainer, Wesley Ward, will send out Merribelle Stable, Tabor, Smith and Magnier’s Happy Like a Fool as the early favorite. The daughter of Distorted Humor captured a 4 1/2-furlong Keeneland maiden affair by four lengths in April and has trained forwardly since. Ryan Moore rides the chestnut filly from starting stall position 8.
Trainer Clive Cox, who won two Group 1s at Royal Ascot last year, will be represented in the Queen Mary Stakes by six-length Bath winner Heartache. Owned by the Hot to Trot Racing Club, the bay daughter of Kyllachy is highly regarded and seen as the likeliest upsetter for the early favorite.
The Queen Mary has been carded as the day’s second with a post time of 10:05 a.m. ET.
California native and lifelong horsewoman Margaret Ransom is a graduate of the University of Arizona’s Race Track Industry Program. She got her start in racing working in the publicity departments at Calder Race Course and Hialeah Park, as well as in the racing office at Gulfstream Park in South Florida. She then spent six years in Lexington, KY, at BRISnet.com, where she helped create and develop the company’s popular newsletters: Handicapper’s Edge and Bloodstock Journal.After returning to California, she served six years as the Southern California news correspondent for BloodHorse, assisted in the publicity department at Santa Anita Park and was a contributor to many other racing publications, including HorsePlayer Magazine and Trainer Magazine. She then spent seven years at HRTV and HRTV.com in various roles as researcher, programming assistant, producer and social media and marketing manager.
She has also walked hots and groomed runners, worked the elite sales in Kentucky for top-class consignors and volunteers for several racehorse retirement organizations, including CARMA.In 2016, Margaret was the recipient of the prestigious Stanley Bergstein Writing Award, sponsored by Team Valor, and was an Eclipse Award honorable mention for her story, “The Shocking Untold Story of Maria Borell,” which appeared on USRacing.com. The article and subsequent stories helped save 43 abandoned and neglected Thoroughbreds in Kentucky and also helped create a new animal welfare law in Kentucky known as the “Borell Law.”Margaret’s very first Breeders’ Cup was at Hollywood Park in 1984 and she has attended more than half of the Breeders’ Cups since. She counts Holy Bull and Arrogate as her favorite horses of all time.She lives in Robinson, Texas, with her longtime beau, Tony. She is the executive director of the 501(c)(3) non-profit horse rescue, The Bridge Sanctuary.
