Benjamin Leon Jr.'s Besilu Stables made a splash in the North American racing and breeding realms, buying big at auction, winning major races, and producing horses as great as champion and leading sire Gun Runner from his breeding program.
Just as quickly, it seemed as though he disappeared from the sport. He sold most of his equine holdings to Goncalo Torrealba of Three Chimneys, and his on-track presence in the States is practically nil.
This is not a “where are they now?” story, though, because Besilu Stables is still very much in business with some of the most valuable bloodlines in the stud book. The operation just looks different from the one we had grown accustomed to seeing during the previous decade.
Leon, a Cuban-born healthcare executive based in South Florida, announced his presence on the national racing scene during the 2011 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale, where he bought heavily from the prolific dispersals of Prince Saud bin Khaled's Palides Investments N.V., Inc., and Edward P. Evans.
The centerpiece of his purchase list was Royal Delta from the Palides Investments N.V. draft, a daughter of Empire Maker who had recently won the Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic, and would soon earn the Eclipse Award as champion 3-year-old filly. When the hammer fell, Leon had secured the filly for $8.5 million.
Leon recounted the event, and a conversation with one of his advisors, to Great British Racing International during a “British Racing: Invest In The Best” interview:
“When I bought Royal Delta, I asked [him], 'How much do you think she will cost?' He said, 'Maybe $9 million, maybe more.' I asked 'Do you think she's worth it?' and he said, 'Well, can you make another $9 million in your business over the next year or two or three?' I said 'yes,' and he said “Well, there's only one of them.' That did it.”
In the short-term, the rest was history. Royal Delta went on to win the Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic again in 2012 under the Leon colors, and she won Eclipses as champion older female in 2012 and 2013. She retired with 12 wins, earnings of more than $4.8 million, and in 2019, she was voted into the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame.
Despite all of her success, Leon, and many of Royal Delta's on-track connections still felt as though she exited the track with some untapped potential still left in her.
“I remember that I talked to (trainer) Bill Mott that when I retired her after the second try at the Breeders' Cup Ladies Classic (with Besilu; her third overall), he told me, 'The only thing I regret is I never gave her a chance on turf,'” Leon said. “Then, I talked to the jockey that used to work her (French-born Rodolphe Brisset, who is now a trainer), and he told me they breezed her once on turf, and she was quicker and faster than she was on dirt. That stuck in my mind.”
Royal Delta was beyond proven as a competitor on dirt, but her pedigree backed up Mott's and Brisset's assertions that she could have potential on turf.
In fact, Royal Delta was something of an outlier within her family as an elite horse on the main track. Her dam, Delta Princess, was a multiple graded stakes winner on turf. Royal Delta's two most successful siblings – Delta Prince and Crown Queen (also owned by Leon) – were also Grade 1 winners on the grass.
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Want to support our journalism while accessing bonus behind-the-scenes content, Q&As, and more? Subscribe to our Patreon stream.Royal Delta's retirement to the breeding shed coincided with a shift in Leon's focus within the Thoroughbred landscape. He downsized his racing and breeding operations, and held on to a handful of high-quality broodmares. During this time, Leon had taken an interest in the European Thoroughbred industry, and with a pair of Grade 1 winners with turf-leaning pages in Royal Delta and Crown Queen, he decided to tackle a new frontier.
Both mares were sent overseas to be bred to all-world sire Galileo, and then reside at The National Stud in Newmarket, England. With Galileo getting along in years when Leon sent his mares overseas in the late 2010s, (Galileo died in 2021), the breeder wanted to give his mares as many natural advantages as he could while there was still time.
For all the good fortune that Leon enjoyed with Royal Delta on the racetrack, the mare's breeding career was marred with misfortune.
“The first year I bred her, she was so physically fit that she was not set to be a broodmare, so she didn't take,” Leon said. “The second year, she took, then 7 ½ months into it, she aborted. I sent her a third time, and then she took. Then, two or three days after she had her foal, (Royal Delta) unfortunately passed away due to complications of the foaling, an internal hemorrhage that you could not control, even if she was in an operating room. That happens every so often to mares, but very rarely. Unfortunately, it happened to the best mare that I ever had, or likely that I will ever have.”
The surviving foal, the filly Delta's Royalty, was going to become the focal point of Leon's Thoroughbred fortunes someday, whether Royal Delta had suffered her unfortunate fate or not, but the filly was suddenly thrust in that position at just a few days old.
When it came time to think about the filly's racing career, Leon chose Roger Varian as his trainer, on the advice of his longtime adviser Fabricio Buffolo.
“I didn't know which trainer to use, and he strongly recommended Roger Varian,” Leon said. “I went over to England, and I met Mr. Varian and liked him very much. I saw his record, and it was very impressive, and he's a very nice person. We talk on the phone as needed, and I've always gone to Europe at least once a year, but the pandemic got in our way.”
Delta's Royalty showed promise as a juvenile, winning on debut at Kempton, but it would be her lone victory in five starts through the end of her 3-year-old season. Leon said he was offered “a lot of money” for Delta's Royalty following her maiden win, but his priority with the filly was always clear. After losing Royal Delta so abruptly, Leon wasn't going to take any chances when it came to extending the bloodline.
Video courtesy of British Racing: Invest In The Best / Great British Racing International
Already by one of Europe's tentpole sires in Galileo, Delta's Royalty was bred to another of those tentpoles in Dubawi for her first mating. That foal, a colt, arrived on Feb. 5. Much like his mother, the new colt has a generational task ahead of him, but Leon said they'll both have a home with him to achieve it.
“I'm not going to sell him,” Leon said about the young colt. “I'm not going to sell any of these horses. You should never say never, because something happens and you do the opposite, but my intent is to breed those horses to the best horses in Europe, raise those horses and run those horses over there, and enjoy the process, and down the road, we'll see what happens.
“I have all the faith in the world that Delta's Royalty will give us something very special,” he continued. “For me, that's one of my jewels, and I'm going to stick with her until the end of time. That's the relationship I have with Delta's Royalty – 'til death do us part' – like I had with her dam.”
After a season of turning inward with his operation, Leon said he might be ready to begin expanding again on both sides of the Atlantic and establish a global-quality turf program.
“I have bred a few horses in England and Ireland with the intent of hopefully coming up with something special on turf so I could compete there,” he said. “If we have something that wins, and it's special in Europe, it would be a very special turf horse in the U.S. after that. It'll be someday that we'll be flying [Delta's Royalty] back to the U.S. to breed to some U.S. studs, but not until we're finished breeding her to the best horses in Europe, that we believe could be a good match.
“I think we'll be buying some horses over there (in Europe), too, but I don't know if we'll start doing that this year or the following year,” Leon continued. “Most likely, it'll be next year. I should be able to be at the sales over there next year, and hopefully I can make an acquisition that will turn out to be like Royal Delta.”
Leon was scheduled to make a trip to England in late September to visit his European broodmare band, and plan their future matings. Plans were still in the air for Delta's Royalty when he spoke with GBRI, but he said Crown Queen would be returning to the U.S. to breed to a domestic stallion.
Crown Queen, by Smart Strike, was bred to Empire Maker for her first mating, and produced the colt Queen's Empire in 2017. He became a stakes-placed steeplechaser.
She was bred to Galileo for the 2018 foaling season, but the ensuing colt died as a yearling due to an injury. She produced a Dubawi colt in 2020, a Frankel colt in 2021, and a Kingman filly in 2022.
Where and how Besilu Stables plans to succeed might look different, but Leon said the mission has never changed since day one, even if his place in the spotlight has.
“I've had the gift of God of experiencing those top moments in the Thoroughbred industry, and I have the intention of never leaving the Thoroughbred industry,” Leon said. “Even at a lower volume of horses, I believe in quality. I think quality will always reign.”
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