Attfield reaches milestone as Lady Speightspeare, Crystal Cliffs dead-heat
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Hall of Fame trainer Roger Attfield registered career win number 2000 in dramatic fashion at Woodbine Saturday with favored Lady Speightspeare, who dead-heated with shipper Crystal Cliffs in the Grade 2, $176,550 Nassau Stakes.
Lady Speightspeare set an honest pace under Emma-Jayne Wilson while being pressed by Dreaming of Drew down the backstretch and through the turn in the one-mile turf route. Our Flash Drive joined the leaders from a three-wide position entering the stretch, while Crystal Cliffs was in the midst of her wide rally.
Our Flash Drive hung in deep stretch and Lady Speightspeare dug in late to hit the wire on a par with Crystal Cliffs, in a final time of 1:32.40.
Plum Ali finished fourth in the 11-horse field of fillies and mares.
“I never really thought much about (2000) until just recently,” Attfield said. “I’m very proud of it. She’s an interesting filly to train. She was unlucky this winter. A lot of different things happened that people didn’t really know about, and then Churchill was a disaster with that turf course. The jockey said she didn’t handle it—it was too loose. She’d trained well into this race, and I’m very proud of her. From where I was watching from, I didn’t think I got beaten.”
Lady Speightspeare returned $3.30 and the Graham Motion-trained Crystal Cliffs paid $4.20 under Rafael Hernandez. The both earned $70,000.