Contenders unwilling to concede Adoration to favored Vale Dori

ARCADIA, Calif. – Vale Dori has nothing to prove Sunday at Santa Anita. A Grade 1 winner with four straight graded stakes wins, Vale Dori is practically overqualified for a little Grade 3, $100,000 race such as the Adoration Stakes.

Meanwhile, three main rivals have everything to prove. Sensitively is a sprinter running long for the first time, Bellamentary is returning from a six-month layoff, and Skye Diamonds is racing in a graded stakes for the first time.

Add uncertainty regarding track condition – weekend rain is forecast – and the 1 1/16-mile Adoration is filled with questions.

“With that Grade 1 winner in there, it’s quite a challenge,” Skye Diamonds’s trainer, Bill Spawr, said.

Spawr will take his chances with the streaking California-bred stakes winner Skye Diamonds, recognizing that Vale Dori is a deserving favorite.

The absence of Stellar Wind and Songbird from the winter-spring stakes at Santa Anita allowed Vale Dori to reel off a series of graded stakes wins, including a soft-trip victory last out in the Grade 1 Santa Margarita.

Vale Dori is unlikely to get an easy lead Sunday due to front-runner Sensitively.

“We’re definitely going to go for the lead,” Sensitively’s trainer, Phil D’Amato, said. “I don’t think anyone’s going to go with her early. And we’ll see what Vale Dori does with horses in front of her.”

D’Amato also entered Bellamentary, who “has been firing bullets for the last month.”

D’Amato said Friday he plans to start both Sensitively and Bellamentary.

Faithfully, Autumn Flower and Lady Tapit also entered the Adoration, won by odds-on favorites the last three years – Beholder in 2015 and 2016 and Let Faith Arise in 2014. The Adoration leads to the Grade 1 Beholder Mile on June 3.

Adoration, Race 5

KEY CONTENDERS

Vale Dori, by Asiatic Boy

Last 3 Beyers: 100-91-95

◗ Bob Baffert trains Vale Dori, who has won 8 of 13 starts. She has been favored in seven of eight starts in the U.S.; she was odds-on in six of those.

Skye Diamonds, by First Dude

Last 3 Beyers: 95-95-83

◗ Claimed for $40,000 last summer, Skye Diamonds has won four races and $189,100 from five starts since the claim.

◗ Spawr said Skye Diamonds “is like a stud. She always wants to bite you, she’s got that grit.”

Bellamentary, by Bellamy Road

Last 3 Beyers: 63-80-88

◗ Although she ran below par in her only previous start on a wet track last winter, D’Amato does not hold that against her.

“It was a weird track,” he said. “It wasn’t a typical wet-fast track. It was kind of soupy.”

Sensitively, by Street Sense

Last 3 Beyers: 79-57-99

◗ With a sprinter running long for the first time, D’Amato acknowledged, “We’re taking a shot. She’s going to go out there winging.”