Richard E. Bailey, a cable television executive, purchased her as a yearling for $22,000 and entrusted her race conditioning to Stephen A. DiMauro.
On the way to being voted the Eclipse Award as 1975's American Champion Two-Year-Old Filly, Dearly Precious won eight of her nine starts.
As a three-year-old, Dearly Precious won her April 4, 1976 debut in the Flirtation Stakes at Baltimore's Pimlico Race Course.
[4] Her racing career over, Dearly Precious retired having won twelve of her sixteen starts, and eventually served as a broodmare.
Her offspring met with limited success in racing, the best of which was a mating to Nijinsky that produced stakes winner Mister Modesty.