C'S Lilly Dancer moves back to dirt off career-best Beyer on turf
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Trainer Scott Tubbs was high enough on the filly C’S Lilly Dancer after she won a maiden race on turf at Turf Paradise last year to send the then-3-year-old to another trainer at Prairie Meadows to run in more lucrative dirt routes. C’S Lilly Dancer proceeded to go 1 for 6 before being returned to the Phoenix barn of Tubbs, who conceded she “didn’t do very well” in Iowa.
Back in Arizona, C’S Lilly Dancer crossed the wire first in her 2026 debut on Feb. 28 but was disqualified from the purse money due to a medication violation. Tubbs then stepped her way up in the $30,000 Queen of the Green Stakes on March 21, where she finished a rapidly closing third and posted a Beyer Speed Figure of 81 – 22 points higher than her previous career best and the top number in Saturday’s ninth race at Emerald Downs, a $10,000 starter allowance that drew six fillies and mares.
C’S Lilly Dancer has been off since the Queen of the Green and has never raced at Emerald, where Tubbs has a record of 33-6-4-4 at the current meet.
“It took her a little while to get adapted back to the dirt,” explained Tubbs, who also will start Nephele. “I took my time easing her back into it. She’s worked good. Her last two works have been super.”
Kevin Krigger rode C’S Lilly Dancer in her last two races at Turf Paradise and will have the mount again from the inside post in this one-mile race. Tubbs is hoping for either Exington or Bangie Go to set a hot pace for C’S Lilly Dancer to close into.
“I think she can lay third or fourth, if not near the lead,” Tubbs said. “I hope we get a speed duel in front of us.”
◗ This year’s $125,000 Longacres Mile on Aug. 16 has attracted 22 nominations, including last year’s first- and second-place finishers, Arrowthegreat and Bearings. Dan Blacker trains Arrowthegreat, and Justin Evans conditions Bearing.
Eight trainers who have saddled Longacres Mile winners have nominated horses: Bob Baffert, Howard Belvoir, Blacker, Craig Dollase, Mark Glatt, Mike Puhich, Tom Wenzel, and Blaine Wright. Among local horses, Wenzel’s Slew’s Tiz Whiz, who won the race in 2022, is prepared to make his fifth straight Longacres Mile start after narrowly winning a one-mile allowance last Saturday over Elodio Madrigal’s first-time router Cap It Daddy, who also is nominated to the Mile.
◗ Emerald Downs’s longtime director of publicity, Joe Withee, won the Jackpot Pick Six all by his lonesome on Saturday, pocketing a meet-high payout of $42,046.76.
Withee won the wager on a $9.60 ticket that featured 96 10-cent combinations. Slew’s Tiz Whiz ($4.68) was Withee’s lone single. His sequence included a couple of longshots in Bolt Action Beau ($26.38) and Golden Regal ($27.70).
Withee is a 2021 Washington Racing Hall of Fame inductee whose duties include ontrack commentary and winner’s circle interviews throughout the racing season.
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