page_title: Lucky Lilac
section_title: 2019: four-year-old season
hierarchical_section_title: Lucky Lilac / Racing career / 2019: four-year-old season
caption_attribution_description: English: Lucky Lilac(JPN), Racehorse of Japan. 日本語: ラッキーライラック（第44回エリザベス女王杯出走時）
context_page_description: Lucky Lilac is a Japanese Thoroughbred racehorse. As a two-year-old in 2017 she was undefeated in three races including the Artemis Stakes and Hanshin Juvenile Fillies and took the JRA Award for Best Two-Year-Old Filly. In the following year she won the Tulip Sho and was placed in both the Oka Sho and the Yushun Himba. In 2019 she won the Queen Elizabeth II Cup and finished second in the Hong Kong Vase.
context_section_description: On 24 February 2019 Lucky Lilac was matched against male opposition when she contested the Grade 2 Nakayama Kinen. After racing in second place behind Maltese Apogee she took the lead in the straight and opened up a clear advantage but was caught on the line and beaten a neck by the five-year-old Win Bright. In April the filly started odds-on favourite for the Hanshin Himba Stakes and came home eighth in a blanket finish, beaten less than two lengths by the winner Mikki Charm. Despite five consecutive defeats Lucky Lilac was made the 3.3/1 favourite for a strong renewal of the Victoria Mile at Tokyo on 12 May. She tracked the front-running Aerolithe before launching a strong challenge on the outside but in another close finish she was beaten into fourth place behind Normcore, Primo Scene and Crocosmia.
  Lucky Lilac returned from her summer break to contest the Grade 2 Fuchu Himba Stakes over 1800 metres at Tokyo on 14 October and finished third behind Scarlet Color and Frontier Queen. Christophe Soumillon took over from Ishibashi for the filly's next race, the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup on 10 November at Kyoto in which she started the 4.4/1 third choice in the betting behind the three-year-olds Loves Only You and Chrono Genesis. Her other fifteen opponents included Crocosmia, Scarlet Color and Frontier Queen. She settled on the inside in mid division as Crocosmia set the pace from Loves Only You, before making rapid progress in the straight, overtaking Crocosmia 100 metres from the finish and winning by one and a quarter lengths. After the race Soumillon said "I was very confident when I saw how good she was in training but today she was even better. She was really concentrating and I saw she was reacting very fast... The pace was not very fast so I thought it would be a little bit hard to make up ground, but finally I took the option to stay in the inside and she really quickened well and at the 200-meter marker when I saw the gap was still open".
  On her final appearance of the year Lucky Lilac was sent to Sha Tin Racecourse for the Hong Kong Vase over 2400 metres in December. With Soumillon again in the saddle she produced a strong late run from the rear of the field to finish second of the fourteen runners behind her fellow Japanese challenger Glory Vase.
caption: Lucky Lilac wins the Queen Elizabeth II Cup
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "4104", "Image ImageLength": "2736", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 70D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "350", "Image YResolution": "350", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 21.0 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2019:11:10 18:57:57", "Image ExifOffset": "276", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "978", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7254", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1600", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "3200", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "3200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0231", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2019:11:10 15:42:51", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2019:11:10 15:42:51", "EXIF OffsetTime": "+09:00", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "665241/62500", "EXIF ApertureValue": "2485427/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "222", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "22", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "22", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1200", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "15065817/8192", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "15065817/8192", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "221057001835", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[55, 250, 0/0, 0/0]", "EXIF LensModel": "EF-S55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM", "EXIF LensSerialNumber": "000031ebea"}