Down Royal leads over the last fence of Saturday’s Peapack Stakes at Far Hills. Tod Marks photo
Bernie and Kate Dalton cover all the bases when it comes to Down Royal – they’re the co-breeders, she’s the trainer and he’s the jockey of Joe Fowler’s steeplechase mare who landed a big payday in the $50,000 Peapack Stakes at the Far Hills Races in Far Hills, N.J. Oct. 16.
Bred in New York out of another Dalton steeplechase winner Miss Crown, Down Royal faced just two rivals in the 2 1/8-mile stakes – the final race on a six-race card on American steeplechasing’s richest day. Run just as a heavy storm hit the course, the Peapack turned into a coronation as the 2-5 favorite led much of the way and won by 3 1/2 lengths over Speed Alert with Eve’s City third. Down Royal, a daughter of Alphabet Soup, covered the distance in 4:15.20.
“Three-horse races are always a nightmare,” said Bernie Dalton. “You should win, half the time you get beat. I tried to keep it simple, keep close, let her stroll along when I thought they were trying to slow it up. She pricked her ears going to the last, got to the top of the hill and was idling the rest of the run in.”
The Daltons won two jump races with Miss Crown, who also placed in five stakes in her 17-start career over fences in 2008-11. Her first foal, a son of Albertus Maximus named Fergus Maximus, sold for $19,000 as a yearling and lost his only two starts on the flat. Down Royal came next, foaling at McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds and going through her early paces with the Daltons at their base in Camden, S.C. She made three fruitless flat starts for trainer Peter Pugh in 2016-17 before switching to jumps and winning her third try in November 2017. She lost her next 11 starts – placing six times – before missing almost a year from June 2020 to April 2021 and resurrecting her career in 2021.
Down Royal won a handicap hurdle against males to start the season in April, and placed second to likely 2021 Eclipse Award winner The Mean Queen (Ire) in the Margaret Henley Stakes at Nashville in May. This summer, Down Royal crossed the line second in the $75,000 Randy Rouse Memorial at Colonial Downs only to be declared the winner when Screen Image failed a post-race drug test. After that $45,000 payday, Down Royal went to Far Hills and pocketed another $30,000 in the Peapack.
“It’s fantastic,” said Bernie Dalton. “I know we got the stake in the lab at Colonial, but her mother was second in filly stakes, beaten noses and heads, couldn’t win. We were just delighted for her to get it. She’s like a child, we’ve had her since she was a foal, you look at her every year, she never lets you down. She fell the first time with me as a 3-year-old, overjumped at the second-to-last when she was going to win. She’s never made a mistake since, she’s just the best ride. Keeps an old man like me going.”
The 7-year-old mare, whose dam died in 2017, improved to 3-for-4 on the year and pushed her 2021 bankroll to $91,500. In most years that would be more than enough to take the steeplechase filly/mare title, but 2021 is not most years as The Mean Queen will take the overall earnings title and the distaff division on the strength of three Grade 1 wins against males.
