Bellafina gamely prevails in Las Virgenes
ARCADIA, Calif. – Bellafina had to work harder than expected on Saturday in the Grade 2, $200,000 Las Virgenes Stakes for 3-year-old fillies, but showed her class by prevailing anyway over a surface and with a race shape that might not have been ideal for her.
Bellafina ($2.20) probably gave her backers in the win pool some anxious moments, but those who plunged on her to show were never in danger. Sent off the heavy 1-10 favorite, she turned back an early challenge from Mother Mother and a late threat from Enaya Alrabb to check in first by three-quarters of a length over Enaya Alrabb for her fifth victory in seven starts.
Calf Moon Bay, last early in the five-horse field, ran on for third, 2 3/4 lengths behind Enaya Alrabb. Mother Mother tired from her early efforts and finished fourth. The race’s longest shot, 33-1 Tomlin, trailed.
“They made us work a little bit, but she won on class,” said her owner, Kaleem Shah.
This was a means to an end. The main goal for Bellafina this spring is the Kentucky Oaks on May 3, a race for which she added another 10 points on the system used by Churchill Downs to determine the Oaks field. Her trainer, Simon Callaghan, said Bellafina would only have one more prep prior to that, in the Santa Anita Oaks on April 6, so she’ll get a fresehening of nearly two months before her next start.
The Las Virgenes was designed to move Bellafina along, and she had to get plenty out of it, being as the track was rated good and she had to set a legitimate pace of 23.13 seconds for the quarter, 46.33 for the half, and 1:10.31 for six furlongs before finishing the mile in 1:35.99 under regular rider Flavien Prat.
“She did what she had to do,” Callaghan said. “She set legitimate fractions over a slightly sticky track.
“It was a fairly honest pace. Mother Mother is a good filly, and she fell back to fourth.”
What remains to be seen is if Bellafina will be as effective when stretched out to 1 1/8 miles, the Kentucky Oaks distance, and whether she’ll be at her best at Churchill Downs. She already has won going 1 1/16 miles, in the Chandelier, but she lost her only try at Churchill Downs when fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, a race in which she broke poorly and ran into a sharp winner in the champion Jaywalk.
The Las Virgenes marked the first time Bellafina had competed on a track that wasn’t fast.
On a fast track, Bellafina has been brilliant. She was coming off a runaway victory in the Santa Ynez Stakes going seven furlongs on Jan. 6. Since she appeared to tower over her rivals on form Saturday, she attracted $391,345 in the show pool out of $445,214.
Bellafina, a daughter of Quality Road, was purchased by Shah as a 2-year-old at the Fasig Tipton Florida sale 11 months ago for $800,000. The $120,000 winner’s share brought her bankroll to $828,000, and her residual value is substantial, being as she’s a two-time, Grade 1 winner in the Chandelier and Del Mar Debutante.
She’s not the run-off she was early in her career, and she has filled out into an eye-catching physical specimen.
“Mentally she’s progressed well, and physically she’s progressed well,” Callaghan said. “She’s done everything you’d want to see in a filly going from 2 to 3.”
