ARCADIA – Sunday’s $200,000 Grade II Las Virgenes Stakes at Santa Anita was billed as the first big showdown of the 2017 racing season: Champagne Room, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies champ in one corner, and Unique Bella, a budding superstar, in the other.
In the end, it turned into a one-horse runaway, with 1-9 favorite Unique Bella winning the same race her elder stablemate, Songbird, did last year in a breeze. The advertised showdown instead turned out to be an 83/4-length show of force by a 3-year-old filly that appears destined for greatness.
Once Unique Bella, a daughter of the prolific sire Tapit, took the lead from pacesetting Mopotism down the backside, the race was over.
“When she made that move down the backside … I didn’t really want her to, (but) but she just switched to her right lead and opened her stride up and it took her there,” winning jockey Mike Smith said. “It’s crazy how she gets up underneath herself, and she’s very athletic.
“She was just very happy. She was pricking her ears and having a good time out there. I was happy to let her do what she wanted to do. I could have eased her back. If somebody wanted to go a little quicker, I could have even took her farther back. She’s quick if I want her to be, and she doesn’t have to be on the lead, so it’s a good thing.”
Of course, it’s early in the year, and talk of the Kentucky Derby on May 6 is in the air. Racing message boards were awash with talk last year from people that wanted to see Songbird race against the boys at Churchill Downs.
When you win like Unique Bella did on Sunday, that sort of chatter is going to surface again.
Unique Bella’s final time of 1:35.66 for the mile might have translated into victory in Saturday’s Grade III Robert B. Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita versus the boys.
Asked if Unique Bella could have won the Lewis, Smith’s chuckle told it all.
“She might have,” he said.
Translation: There’s a strong possibility she would have.
Unique Bella’s trainer, Jerry Hollendorfer, is a Hall of Famer who has historically played it close to the vest. He’s not afraid to race his fillies against males, but he likes to pick his spots.
“I really like to concentrate on the filly races,” he said. “If an opportunity came to do something else, we’d probably have to consider that, but I’d like to keep her against the fillies if I can.”
Which means most likely the $400,000 Santa Anita Oaks on April 8, which Songbird won last year, and then the Kentucky Oaks, a race Songbird missed because of illness, on May 5.
“There’s enough money to run out here and run against the girls, not the boys,” Hollendorfer said. “I think we’ll try and run here, and if we’d be fortunate enough, we’d point to the (Kentucky) Oaks.”
Is Unique Bella comparable to Songbird? Perhaps potentially better?
“I don’t like to compare fillies, and I won’t compare those two,” Hollendorfer said.
So we’ll do it for him.
As they say in racing, time only counts when you’re serving it in prison, but Unique Bella’s clocking Sunday was close to a full second faster than Songbird’s (1:36.84) in the Las Virgenes. Songbird won by “only” 61/2 lengths. After the Las Virgenes, Songbird was perfect in five starts, winning by a total of 281/2 lengths. Unique Bella, who’s won three of four, has won by a total of 261/2 lengths.
In other words, both are pretty special fillies.
Smith, for his part, will only say Unique Bella’s got the same type of ability as Songbird.
“Definitely,” he said.
Added Smith: “Very similar as far as their talents. She’s got a long way to go to do what Songbird’s done. But the talent is certainly there.”
Mopotism finished second, 11/4 lengths in front of Champagne Room, as Miss Souther Miss brought up the rear in the four-horse race for 3-year-old fillies.
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