Speightful Lily's gate schooling pays off in allowance victory

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Speightful Lily has yet to duplicate her mammoth debut performance from 11 months ago, but her front-running victory Thursday in a second-level New York-bred allowance was a good sign to trainer James Bond.

Speightful Lily, who won her debut last January by 14 1/2 lengths while earning a 95 Beyer Speed Figure, won for the third time in five starts. She had not run since finishing sixth as the 4-5 favorite in a similar spot as Thursday in July at Saratoga.

Bond said Speightful Lily is somewhat difficult and noted she had some gate issues that needed to be addressed.

“That last race just kind of blew her up. She had to go back and settle in the gate a little bit,” Bond said. “We’ve been standing her and working on her to get her to settle in there so she broke a little bit better yesterday.”

Bond said that Speightful Lily did benefit from the scratch of the other main speed horse in the race. Still, her two previous victories had come over wet tracks while Thursday’s win came over a fast surface.

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“That was good to see,” Bond said.

Speightful Lily, a half-sister to the three-time stakes-winning New York-bred Make Mischief, earned a 77 Beyer for her Thursday victory.

Bond said a race like the $125,000 Broadway on Feb. 23 could be where Speightful Lily runs next.

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