Champion Lee pilots Aviatrice to another big-race win Newly-crowned champion jockey Billy Lee concluded last season with a Finale Stakes-flourish and today landed the first feature race of Dundalk’s new winter series, piloting Aviatrice (3/1) to win the Listed Irish Stallion Farms EBF Cooley Fillies Stakes. Lee’s success on Thread Of Gold in Sunday’s season-finale brought the curtain down on a career-defining achievement and today he produced Aviatrice with perfect timing, improving from mid-field to score by three-parts of a length from Never Let Go . Aviatrice had also won last year’s renewal of today’s race, with Marnane reporting “it was a replica of last year, she jumped, travelled really well and Billy gave her a lovely ride in mid-div. He just felt that today, she might have got there a little bit too soon. "She is very good on the surface, she worked up here two weeks ago with a very good five-furlong horse and kicked him out of the way. She is very, very good here and that was a deep race tonight. This has been the target for a good bit of the season. "There is a Listed race for fillies over a mile in a couple of weeks at Lingfield next so I think we will have a pop at that and that might be her finished then, although we were talking about going to Dubai, so things are fluid at the moment. "Next year she could be that filly we were hoping she would be this year and will have another year under her belt. "Niall (Molloy) is a great supporter of the yard, so I'm really delighted.” Lee and Marnane had previously combined for Royal Ascot success with Settle For Bay in 2018. Aviatrice, also spelled aviatrix, is the French word—and an old-fashioned English term—for a female pilot or flyer of an airplane or airship. Quotes from Michael Graham
