Beat the Benchmark delivered on her pre-race promise with a gutsy maiden special weight victory over the Saratoga turf on Monday, wearing down Love and Lemons late to take her debut by a neck (VIDEO).
The 2-year-old daughter of Speightstown was a $300,000 purchase at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Select Yearling sale a year ago for her owners Klaravich Stables and William H. Lawrence.
The winner was bred in Kentucky by Dixiana Farms. Out of the El Prado mare Tabarin, Beat the Benchmark is a half-sister to the stakes winner Abraham, while her dams’s siblings include Grade 2 winners Sir Cherokee and Miss Isella.
Speightstown’s 80 winners to date this year include eight stakes winners, 16 stakes horses, two graded stakes winners, and progeny earnings of over $4.5 million.
