Santa Anita: Bella Viaggia finds right spot in California Distaff

ARCADIA, Calif. – Bella Viaggia won her only start on the hillside turf course at Santa Anita in the 2012 California Cup Distaff. She showed enough with a two-length win that day to give trainer Mike Puype the impression that she can play a leading role in turf sprints on the hillside course in coming months.

“The hill is her race and her distance,” Puype said.

His theory will be tested on Saturday when Bella Viaggia starts in the $100,000 California Distaff for statebred fillies and mares at about 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside.

The race is a substitute for the California Cup Distaff, which will not be run this year. The California Cup, a day of stakes for California-breds run annually in the autumn since 1990, is not being conducted in 2013. Instead, the California Cup program will be merged with the Sunshine Millions program for statebreds at Santa Anita in the early months of 2014.

Bella Viaggia won a division of the California Cup Distaff on Oct. 13, 2012, her first start on turf. She missed the opportunity to run frequently on the hillside earlier this year during the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting because she was out of training with sore knees, Puype said.

“It wasn’t that we didn’t want to” run her on the hill, Puype said earlier this week. “We gave her time off. Her knees were bugging her. She’s good right now.”

Owned by SLO Racing Stable, Bella Viaggia has won 4 of 7 starts and earned $249,360. She was second in her three losses. “It’s a gorgeous record,” Puype said.

Bella Viaggia won an optional claimer at six furlongs on turf at Betfair Hollywood in her comeback race in June, and was second twice at Del Mar in one-mile races – to Sweet Lulu on the synthetic main track in an optional claimer on July 24, and on turf when beaten a half-length by Halo Dolly in the Solana Beach Handicap for California-bred females on Aug. 18. Sweet Lulu later won the Grade 1 Test Stakes at Saratoga.

Puype said that Bella Viaggia “gets a little keyed up” in one-mile races. “The mile is within her range, but the sprints are better,” he said.

The California Distaff could be the first of two starts on the hillside for Bella Viaggia before the Santa Anita autumn meeting ends on Nov. 3. A successful race on Saturday would lead to a start in the $100,000 Sen. Ken Maddy Handicap on the hillside on Nov. 2, a race on the undercard for the Saturday Breeders’ Cup program.

Bella Viaggia, who will be ridden by Gary Stevens in the California Distaff, breaks from the rail in a field of eight. She must catch Tasty Treat, who won the Daisycutter Handicap at five furlongs on turf at Del Mar on Aug. 9. Trained by Mike Pender, Tasty Treat has won three of her last four starts, all in turf sprints.

There are two other stakes winners in the field in Ismene, who won two stakes in 2011, and Qiaona, who won the California Breeders’ Champion Stakes for 3-year-old fillies on the main track here in January.