Sunday TimeformUS Highlight Horse: Speightful Lily ready for stakes test in Broadway

Aqueduct | Race 9 | Post Time 4:35 p.m. (ET)

I’m not thrilled with the idea of taking a short price on Tought Street (#11), who seems likely to attract support for the popular Chad Brown barn. She’s been an overachiever throughout her career, rising out of maiden claiming races early on to win over half a million dollars for her connections. However, it’s fair to wonder if she’s now slightly past her prime as a 6-year-old. She ran one of her better races three back at Saratoga when beating high-level allowance competition. However, she’s required a pair of layoffs since then, and has been a little dull in each subsequent start. I also have some concerns about whether we’ll see her produce her best effort racing without Lasix, since she’s disappointed in prior stakes attempts.

Main rival Landed (#3) is another looking to get back on track after disappointing as the favorite in her most recent start at Keeneland. This filly has conquered a variety of distances, but she’s now cutting back to the same 7-furlong trip over which she won the Bouwerie last summer. She has to get a little faster to beat this field, but that’s certainly a possibility in her 4-year-old debut.

There does appear to be an ample amount of early speed in this race, but it should be noted that DRF’s Dave Grening reported that Catchphrase is expected to scratch from this spot, which removes a major pace player. That won’t necessarily help Caldwell Luvs Gold (#9), who does seem like the best true closer in the field. She didn’t get much pace to set up her late run last time in the Interborough, and she was also done no favors by her jockey guiding her down to the rail for the stretch drive. She had done well closing into a slow pace two back, and she’s another who appears to be rounding into better form.

My top pick is Speightful Lily (#4), who should benefit from that anticipated scratch as a mare who wants to be forwardly placed. She showed so much talent in her career debut last year, drawing off to beat an overmatched group by 14 1/2 lengths in fast time. She hasn’t shown quite that same brilliance since then, but she has had some excuses for not building on that form. She didn’t seem to handle a mile when stretched out and rated off the pace in her second start. Then something clearly went awry when she got into that off the turf race at Saratoga, as she bore out of the turn before getting eased late. It appeared that she had gotten over those issues when she returned at this distance in December, setting an honest pace and extending her advantage late. She got a field-best 114 TimeformUS Speed Figure for that performance, and the effort may be even better than it appears since she was racing inside over a track that was favoring outside paths.