Despite having only won her four-year-old maiden at Loughanmore just ten months ago, The Mean Queen added a first Grade 1 success to her upwardly mobile career with victory in the Jonathan Sheppard Hurdle on Wednesday.
The victory marked a remarkable clean sweep of the placings in the Saratoga contest for first-season trainer Keri Brion – long-time assistant to the now retired Hall of Fame trainer – in whose honour the race was named for the first time.
Brion, who has been a regular presence in the pointing fields here in recent years and saddled a winner here in a Cork Bumper under Dan Nevin last Easter, incredibly secured all four of her runners in the Grade 1 contest from the Baltimore Stables of James and Ellen Doyle.
Three of these had won their point-to-point maidens for the Wexford outfit – including the first and third who was Boulta winner French Light – whilst the runner-up Baltimore Bucko was sold Stateside unraced having received a Hunter Certificate to go pointing.
No mistake for The Mean Queen and @TomGarner90 today! The former Loughanmore and @WexfordRacecour winner coasts to victory in the Grade 1 Jonathan Sheppard at Saratoga @TheNYRA for trainer @Keri145 %uD83D%uDC4F pic.twitter.com/ZYbnPcIs5f
— At The Races (@AtTheRaces) August 18, 2021
The four and three quarter-length success followed an excellent round of jumping by the daughter of Doyen as she made amends for a final-flight blunder at the same course north of New York three weeks earlier to regain the winning thread.
Since crossing the Atlantic, The Mean Queen has won all three of her completed races following Irish successes in Fairyhouse and Wexford, having inherited the Fairyhouse race following a subsequent disqualification.
