Jeff Lilley is in the midst of a career year as a trainer, and if you ask the veteran horseman he has both a talented filly and a special lady to thank for that success.

Lilley is the breeder, co-owner and trainer (sometimes driver) of pacer Bettim Jackie. The three-year-old daughter of Andreoli Hanover is entered in a conditioned event on Friday (November 23) at Woodbine Mohawk Park for the 28th start of her sophomore season, listed at 4-1 on the morning line.

That's certainly not noteworthy in and of itself. What gives this filly ultra-rare status is that she's the first Maritime-sired three-year-old to surpass $100,000 in seasonal earnings. Lilley, however, deflected credit for that accomplishment and suggested there's more at play here than just horsemanship.

"Good horses are born and not made," Lilley told Trot Insider. "Ninety per cent comes from the mother. I'm just lucky enough to have her."

The mother in question is broodmare Bettim Laura, and she's a horse Lilley knows very well as he campaigned her as a two- and three-year-old. After winning her first four stakes starts as a sophomore, Bettim Laura suffered an injury during a race. She did return to the track to win later that year but she was never the same...as Lilley puts it, "it was not meant to be."

Perhaps Bettim Laura was meant to be a producer. Her first two foals have both made marks on the racetrack in the past year. Bettim Laura's first foal was Bettim Vicky, recovered from a lacerated tendon as a yearling to make it to the races and win at first asking.

Bettim Laura's second foal is Bettim Jackie, who started the year as well as anyone could have imagined. After a four-win freshman season for Lilley while in Atlantic Canada, Bettim Jackie was sent west to trainer Richard Moreau to race on the WEG circuit as a sophomore. In eight starts at Woodbine Racetrack, Bettim Jackie racked up a 4-3-0 record and banked more than $54,000.

After a brief rest in advance of stakes starts back in the Maritimes, Bettim Jackie eventually regained that early season form to pick up wins in two Atlantic Sires Stakes, the P.E.I. Colt Stakes, Lady Slipper, Island Breeders and the Atlantic Breeders Crown. She even tested the best older pacing mares in P.E.I. and defeated them in a Fillies & Mares Open event at Red Shores Charlottetown.

Now back in Ontario, Lilley and his co-owners Blair MacLauchlan of Charlottetown, P.E.I. and Danny Purcell of Newport, N.S. have entrusted trainer Dave Daigneault with their prized pacer. Bettim Jackie was saddled with an outside post in her return to Ontario and was never a factor in that race on November 10 at Mohawk but she made up for it with a lifetime best 1:53 score one week later.

"Richard is the best, and his staff is too," said Lilley. "He was full, Dave Daigneault and I both worked for Moreau...if we are both students, he's a good fit."

While the fit with Daigneault is glove-like, Lilley notes that his relationship with his partners is just as natural.

"I am very lucky, I have great owners and they let me do things my way. Danny Purcell has been with me my whole career...I treat him as good as he treats me.

"Blair Maclauchlan is like a guy off of Dragon's Den. 'How much of your own money have you got invested?' He will own an equal share to me, and he is in on eight different horses with me now."

Busy with those horses back home in Charlottetown, Lilley will watch from afar as Bettim Jackie heads postward in Friday night's field of seven. He might venture to Ontario for a month or so when racing slows down in P.E.I. and he completes his season boasting personal bests in earnings ($54,913) and UTR (0.454).

"I got a couple of outside horses, they both won races for me...just having a good year," Lilley stated matter-of-factly. "Success breeds success."