Serengeti Empress finds her niche after gutsy Ballerina win
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Tom Amoss said it’s taken him a year and a half to finally figure out what Serengeti Empress really wants to do. It’s a revelation that became crystal clear in the aftermath of his multiple Grade 1-winning filly’s incredibly game, one-length victory over favored Bellafina in Saturday’s seven-furlong Ballerina.
“I wouldn’t have been able to say for sure before this race that one-turn races going seven furlongs like this was definitely her niche,” Amoss said Sunday. “But after watching her yesterday, this is it. The significance of the race was that after getting off slow and being pushed through a very fast half-mile, at that point I thought we might run last. And when Bellafina ranged up outside her, I was thinking here we’ve done all the dirty work and she’s running a race of a lifetime and she won’t get the win. But then in a blink of an eye she was back in front by a length and one-half again, and that’s what made it all so special.”
Amoss said Serengeti Empress, who earned a 98 Beyer Speed Figure matching the number she received for her second-place finish in the seven-furlong Test one year earlier, has bounced out of her gut-wrenching effort surprisingly well.
“I thought she’d be laying down when I got to the barn this morning, but she’s alert and good, like it was just another day in the park,” Amoss noted. “Right now, the plan is to send her back to Louisville later this week and consider whether to give her one more race, or train her right into the Breeders’ Cup.”
Serengeti Empress won an automatic, fees-paid berth into the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint by virtue of her victory in the Grade 1 Ballerina.
Amoss said as elated as he was in the immediate aftermath of Serengeti Empress’s second Grade 1 win on Saturday, upon reflection it still didn’t compare with the emotions he experienced following her first Grade 1 win 15 months earlier in the Kentucky Oaks.
“In the moment yesterday, I felt like this was even more exciting than winning the Oaks, coming at Saratoga on Travers Day and such,” Amoss said. “But reflecting on it, on Oaks Day I got to be with my family and my close friends with 100,000 people there to witness and experience it with me. This was an entirely different environment. Not getting to feel the appreciation of the crowd yesterday, I really missed that.”
Trainer Simon Callaghan, who was not in attendance Saturday at Saratoga, said Bellafina also came out of the Ballerina in good order.
“She ate up, looks fine,” Callaghan said was the report he received from Tom Morley, in whose barn Bellafina resided while in Saratoga.
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“She ran great, perfect trip. The rider did everything right,” he said of Jose Ortiz. “That filly [Serengeti Empress], when she’s on her game, she’s extremely tough to beat.”
Bellafina is scheduled to fly back to California on Tuesday on the same plane with Gamine and Uncle Chuck.
Callaghan said Bellafina will remain in California for the next couple of months, with her next scheduled travel to Keeneland for the Nov. 7 Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, a race in which she finished second last year at Santa Anita to multiple champion Covfefe.
Callaghan said he expected to prep Bellafina in the Grade 3, $100,000 Chillingworth Stakes – previously known as the L.A. Woman – going 6 1/2 furlongs at Santa Anita on opening day of that track's fall meeting Sept. 19.
– additional reporting by Jay Privman