'She's a filly with a hell of a lot of ability' - Beautiful Diamond 5-1 for Queen Mary after debut win

Karl Burke is set to have another leading contender for Royal Ascot after Beautiful Diamond was made second favourite for the Queen Mary following an impressive debut victory.

The two-year-old was cut to 5-1 (from 8-1) with Sky Bet for the Group 2 contest on June 21, having been introduced at 6-1 with Paddy Power following a three-and-a-half-length success over Rainyniteingeorgia in the 5f fillies’ maiden under Clifford Lee.

Beautiful Diamond was a £360,000 purchase at the breeze-up sales in April and Burke has high expectations for her.

He said: "She’s obviously a filly with a hell of a lot of ability and cost a lot of money at the sales. It was Richard Brown who bought her at Arqana for Sheikh Rashid, and he thought she was exceptional in the breeze. He’s probably been proven right."

With the royal meeting less than two weeks away, Burke’s team is taking shape, and Beautiful Diamond sits behind the Jane Chapple-Hyam-trained Born To Rock in the Queen Mary betting.

He added: "If we were going to go to Royal Ascot we needed to get her out this week at the latest. It’s close enough and even now it’s not ideal, but she’s really had a racecourse gallop today and hopefully she travels back fine.

"I’d nearly be certain of the Queen Mary. She will sharpen up for that, she has to, but she showed a lot of natural speed there.

"Cliff is quite a strong rider and that was as easy a ride he’s given a two-year-old all season. Now we know we can run her without doing too much work at home – we won’t need to do an awful lot over the next couple of weeks."

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