Bees and Honey rallies for the upset in Comely Stakes
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – A Kentucky shipper was expected to win Friday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Comely Stakes at Aqueduct. Just not the one who did.
Bees and Honey, who had a wide trip under Jose Lezcano, relished the 1 1/8-mile distance of the Comely, rallying past fellow Kentucky shippers and top-two betting choices Played Hard and Crazy Beautiful to win the Comely for 3-year-old fillies by 2 3/4 lengths. Played Hard, the 8-5 second choice who set the pace, held second by a half-length over Crazy Beautiful, the 7-5 favorite. Shalimar Gardens was fourth, followed by Vegas Weekend and Hybrid Eclipse. Army Wife and Ninetypercentbrynn were scratched.
The win was the first graded stakes victory for trainer Reeve McGaughey, the son of Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey, who himself on Friday won two races at Aqueduct including the $150,000 Forever Together with Flower Point.
Bees and Honey, who won for maiden $75,000 claiming at Keeneland in October, was making her stakes debut in the Comely. Reeve McGaughey liked the idea of Bees and Honey running 1 1/8 miles against her own age group.
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“The pedigree suggests and the way she’s run pretty much every race suggests the further the better for her,” McGaughey said from Kentucky where he watched the race. “The chance to run against straight 3-year-olds, a mile and an eighth on that racetrack was a pretty big reason for going.”
Breaking from post 5, Bees and Honey was basically four wide throughout under Lezcano, but she was always within two lengths of Played Hard, who under Martin Garcia set fractions of 25.49 seconds for the quarter, 50.18, and 1:15.20 for six furlongs, while stalked by Vegas Weekend.
Bees and Honey overtook Played Hard inside the three-sixteenths pole and widened her margin through the final furlong. Bees and Honey, a daughter of Union Rags owned by Antony Beck’s Gainesway Stable and Andrew Rosen, covered the 1 1/8 miles in 1:54.41 and returned $28.20 as the second-longest shot on the board.
“I lost a little bit of ground on the first turn, down the backside I dropped her in a little bit and she was comfortable the whole way around,” said Lezcano, who also won the Forever Together Stakes on Friday “I started a little early, at the five-sixteenths, she started gaining ground and when I really asked at the eighth pole she take off like a good filly.”
Bees and Honey improved her record to 2 for 5, but she is 2 for 3 since McGaughey added blinkers to the filly’s equipment.
“They focused her in a little bit, she wasn’t quite running a full race for us the first couple of times, she just was really a little spotty,” said McGaughey, who added the blinkers have “gotten her to be more consistent throughout the race.”
McGaughey said Bees and Honey would likely get a winter break in Florida ahead of her 4-year-old campaign.