(Edited Monmouth Park report)

OCEANPORT, N.J.- Trainer Elizabeth Gray will send out her first stakes starter at Monmouth on Saturday when she saddles Richard Brodie’s Obsequious in the $150,000 Boiling Springs (Grade 3) at a mile and a sixteenth on the turf.

Gray, who went out on her own last summer at Saratoga after working as an assistant to Dale Romans for 13 years, has a special affection for her filly. Obsequious provided Gray with her first winner as a trainer when she broke her maiden at the Spa on Aug. 16.

“She’s special in a lot of ways,” Gray said. “We bought her at Timonium as a broodmare prospect last year (for $70,000), and we intended to start her out on the grass. But she worked so well on the Oklahoma track (Saratoga’s training track) that we put her in a maiden race on the dirt, and she won her first start.”

Obsequious, a 3-year-old daughter of Fusaichi Pegasus – User Cat, by Storm Cat, was just the second starter Gray saddled under her own name last year. But it was the culmination of a long apprenticeship.

Gray, a native of Alexandria, Va., started her career working for trainer Ross Pearce at the Buckland Farm operation in Delaware in the late 1980s. Right after that, she found herself at Monmouth Park for the first time.

“In 1991, I came here to gallop horses for Jimmy Croll,” Gray said, referring to the Hall of Fame horseman who passed away last year. “One day, his regular exercise rider, Bobby Perna, got hurt and I had to ride Housebuster. I’ll tell you, I was nervous as hell that day.”

Housebuster would win the second of his two Eclipse Awards as champion sprinter in1991.

Gray left Monmouth after that season and went to work for trainer Dale Romans, who has horses in Florida and the Midwest. She stayed 13 years with Romans, becoming an assistant trainer. Then came a hiatus from racing in 2007.

“I tried to get out of racing,” Gray said. “I’m an animal lover, so I thought I’d open a doggie daycare center. It didn’t last long. I couldn’t get racing out of my system. I missed it.

“I said to myself, since I’ve been working with horses for over 20 years, why not go out on my own,” she said. “I talked to Dale, and he was supportive and said he’d help me, and then at Saratoga last year, Bobby Frankel sent me his overflow horses because Chad Brown had started training on his own. Bobby encouraged me to go out on my own, and I did in August.”

Gray, 46, ended up at Monmouth because she spent the winter at Gulfstream Park.

“A lot of the nice people I met at Gulfstream said they trained at Monmouth in the summer, so I came here,” Gray said.

Obsequious is a special member of the stable and is already graded stakes-placed (second in the G3 Herecomesthebride at Gulf), but she’s just one part of the team. Gray has 15 horses in her barn here.

“Obsequious is the best horse in the barn right now,” the trainer said, “but we have some young horses who could be nice. The constant rain has delayed their training a little, but they’ll be ready to run soon.”

Obsequious turned in a strong work for the Boiling Springs last week, going five furlongs in 1:01.20 on the turf course.

“The dogs were way out, so it was a very nice move,” Gray said. “I expect her to run well.”