Queen\u2019s Martini grabbed the lead on the second turn and held off Pronghorn by a nose to win the $200,000 Dig a Diamond Stakes for older fillies and mares Saturday afternoon at Oaklawn.<\/p>\n
Ridden by David Cabrera, Queen\u2019s Martini covered the one mile over a fast track in 1:37.21. Pronghorn, who was off last, finished 4\u00bc lengths ahead of Standoutsensation, the 6-5 favorite in the six-horse field. Runamileinmyshoes, Mad About Marie, and Bundle completed the order of finish. Ultimate Authority was scratched.<\/p>\n
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The Dig a Diamond marked the 395th career Oaklawn victory for trainer Ron Moquett of Hot Springs, who conditions Queen\u2019s Martini for the Fleur De Lis Stables of Naveed Chowhan, a New Albany, Ind., hematologistoncologist.<\/p>\n
Chowhan privately purchased Queen\u2019s Martini following a third-place finish in a May 20, 2024, allowance race at Parx. Queen\u2019s Martini was exiting a fifth-place finish in an allowance sprint Feb. 22 at Oaklawn.<\/p>\n
In the Dig a Diamond, Queen\u2019s Martini, raced third down the backstretch, just outside Runamileinmyshoes and Standoutsensation. Heading into the turn, Queen\u2019s Martini moved to the leaders, three-wide, and stuck her head in front passing the three-eighths pole. Queen\u2019s Martini, under right-handed urging, opened a 2 ]\u00bd-length lead with a sixteenth of a mile remaining and had just enough to edge Pronghorn. One mile races at Oaklawn begin and end at the sixteenth pole.<\/p>\n
An 8-1 outsider, Queen\u2019s Martini paid $19.20 for the victory. Pronghorn outfinished Standoutsensation by 4 1\/4 lengths for second.<\/p>\n
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Queen\u2019s Martini, a 5-year-old daughter of Mucho Macho Man, raised her earnings to $341,351 following her fourth victory from 13 lifetime starts. The Dig A Diamond was her first career stakes victory.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s estimated attendance was 25,000. Total mutuel handle was $6,913,722.<\/p>\n
Dig a Diamond Quotes<\/p>\n
Winning Jockey David Cabrera (Queen\u2019s Martini): \u201cI learned a lot from her the last time. She doesn\u2019t like too much kickback and she doesn\u2019t like to be in between horses, in traffic that much. I knew we were going to have a little speed, so I just let her get out of there and put her in a good position without getting the kickback. And, of course, I won\u2019t be in traffic. And, it worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Winning Trainer Ron Moquett (Queen\u2019s Martini): \u201cShe tells us when she needs a little spacing and we like to listen. It\u2019s very rewarding. When we got her, she was a little thin and she was kind of wrung out. The good doctor (owner Naveed Chowhan) let me kick her out for a while and do right by her and I love to see him get rewarded for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was originally published by Paulick Report<\/a> on Apr 26, 2026, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Paulick Report as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queen\u2019s Martini grabbed the lead on the second turn and held off Pronghorn by a nose to win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[83165,83164,9,24,63,83163,666,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-210105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-a-diamond","tag-david-cabrera","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-pronghorn","tag-queen","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}