The classy My Miss Lilly no sure thing in comeback race

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – My Miss Lilly has outstanding credentials, but horseplayers may wonder how far they’ll take her Friday. The striking gray filly not only will be making her first start in more than seven months after undergoing ankle surgery, but she’ll also face a couple of in-form rivals going a one-turn mile.

“She’s doing great, and she’s maintained a lot of fitness through her layoff,” said Mark Hennig, who trains My Miss Lilly for a longtime client, the Courtlandt Farms of Donald Adam. “Then again, the mile can be a little tough on them in their first start back. We’re just glad to have her back to get started on what we hope is a very good year.”

My Miss Lilly, with Irad Ortiz Jr. to ride, will be making her 4-year-old debut as one of six fillies and mares in the second of 11 races Friday at Gulfstream Park, when first post is 12:35 p.m. Eastern.

Last year at 3, My Miss Lilly won the Grade 2 Gazelle at Aqueduct and was third in the Grade 2 Mother Goose, along with third-place finishes in two other stakes.

“She’s a quality filly, no doubt,” Hennig said. “She had a tiny chip taken out of an ankle in August, and we sent her home to Courtlandt after that. She’d done a lot of growing up when she came back to me in November. I don’t know what we’ll do after this race, but there are a lot of spots to look at. Let’s see where this takes us.”

My Miss Lilly has had eight workouts at Gulfstream since mid-December, ending with a bullet five-furlong drill in 58.80 seconds on Feb. 5. She figures to face a stern test Friday in the form of Tweeting, a battle-tested 5-year-old trained by Jorge Navarro, and Pink Sands, a sharp last-out winner for Shug McGaughey.

The early feature comes several hours before two turf allowances go back to back late on the card. Race 9 is a $52,000 second-level turf sprint, and Dowse’s Beach surely will be favored for Ortiz and trainer Jason Servis when entered for an optional $62,500 tag. Race 10 is a $51,000 first-level route that drew 11 3-year-old fillies for the turf. Both of those allowances are part of a Rainbow 6 sequence that spans races 6-11.

Two $44,000 allowances for Florida-breds (races 4 and 8) also are on tap. After rain on Wednesday, sunshine and high temperatures around 80 were in the forecast for the rest of the week in this region.