LEES WINS THE COFFS HARBOUR CUP WITH ITZ LILY

By Graham Potter | Thursday, August 5, 2021

There was a rousing finish to the Coffs Harbour Cup where trainer Kris Lees finally got his Coff’s Harbour Cup winner in the form of the chestnut mare Itz Lily.

Itz Lily had made her run with Willo Titto and these two runners joined issue inside the final 75m.

For a moment it looked like their intense, stride for stride battle would go all the way to the wire and, even when Itz Lily managed to gain a slight advantage very late in the running, the win had still not been secured as the locally based Sawtell Cup winner, Greek Hero, rushed up late, dived and just missed, having to settle for second place behind Itz lily with Willo Titto’s finishing a close-up third in a run which was also full of merit.

“We have had a couple of goes before … so it is very good to win the Cup,” said Kris Lees.

‘She (Alysha Collett) rides her very well. She rides everything very well, but she has a real affinity with this mare.

“I suggested she might want to go forward, but she said, no, I’ll ride her where she is comfortable,” continued Lees, “so I let her ride her own race and it was really perfect.

“There is not much of the horse … but she is a really tough mare.

“It was good to win a race like this with her, because she will more than likely go to stud now, so she has done a wonderful job if that is the case.”

“She (Itz Lily) just loves her job,” said Alysha Collett, taking up the story.

“As soon as you put her in the race, she picks the bit up straight away. She makes it easy for me.”

If she does go to stud, Itz lily will take the proud record with her of eight wins from twenty-eight starts, with another eight minor placings to her credit and over half-a-million dollars in prize-money.

And Collett will surely miss her. It is not often you team up with a horse and have a perfect record.

The four runs together for four wins is just that!