Songbird must buck Carina Mia, history in Coaching Club American Oaks

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Songbird will be running against a serious rival at a track with a well-earned reputation as the Graveyard of Champions when she heads a field of five 3-year-old fillies in Sunday’s Grade 1, $500,000 Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga.

Songbird, the champion 2-year-old filly of 2015 and a winner of all eight of her career starts by a combined 42 1/2 lengths, takes on the continually improving Carina Mia as well as the Grade 1 winner Weep No More and two others in the Coaching Club, a 1 1/8-mile race that serves as the local prep for the Grade 1, $600,000 Alabama Stakes here on Aug. 20.

This will be the second time Songbird has left Southern California to race. Last fall, she went to Keeneland for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, where she dominated the previously unbeaten Rachel’s Valentina by 5 3/4 lengths.

Songbird swept a series of stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Santa Anita in the winter and early spring but got sick and was forced to miss the Kentucky Oaks. Songbird, given plenty of time to recover, came back with a dynamite 6 1/2-length victory in the Grade 2 Summertime Oaks on June 18 at Santa Anita.

“She’s been very good coming out of the Summertime Oaks,” trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said Friday. “We think she’s in top shape.”

Songbird arrived here Wednesday night and trained Thursday and Friday. On Friday, Songbird schooled in the starting gate, visited the paddock, and galloped a strong 1 1/2 miles over the main track.

Hollendorfer said Songbird “handled everything beautiful.”

“Stood in the gate good, galloped good, got tough out there coming around the second time,” he said.

On her way to the paddock to school, Songbird got a taste of Saratoga when the admission gates opened and fans were racing through the facility to secure picnic tables.

“She got on her toes a little bit on that, but she settled right down,” Hollendorfer said.

Last summer at Saratoga, champions from the previous year went 0 for 7, including American Pharoah, the Triple Crown winner, who finished second in the Travers.

“I’m not superstitious,” Hollendorfer said. “Anything can happen in the races. That’s why all of us enter.”

Mike Smith, effusive in his praise of the filly, will ride Songbird from the rail. She most likely will be on the lead early on.

Two days before Songbird won the Breeders’ Cup, Carina Mia won her maiden by 9 3/4 lengths, also at Keeneland. She followed that up with a 4 1/4-length score in the Grade 2 Golden Rod at Churchill Downs.

Carina Mia’s 3-year-old schedule got thrown off kilter due to a quarantine at Payson Park, where trainer Bill Mott stables during the winter. After running fourth in the Grade 1 Ashland without a prep, Carina Mia did not qualify for the Kentucky Oaks. Instead, she won the Grade 2 Eight Belles on the Oaks undercard and followed that up with a victory in the Grade 1 Acorn over Kentucky Oaks winner Cathryn Sophia.

Her training since the Acorn gives every indication that Carina Mia is at her best for her toughest race.

“We couldn’t have been this good for the [Kentucky] Oaks,” Mott said. “She just seems like she’s gotten a little better and a little better with the time. She was good [in the Eight Belles], but she’s doing awfully good right now.”

Julien Leparoux rides Carina Mia from post 2.

As for the history of upsets at Saratoga, Mott said, “Boy, a lot of things happen here.”

Mott has been where Hollendorfer is now. He trained Cigar, who won 16 consecutive races.

“I’m kind of looking forward to it because I’ve got everything to gain and nothing to lose,” Mott said. “Plenty of horses that ran against Cigar had nothing to lose.”

The Coaching Club goes as race 10 on an 11-race card that begins at 1 p.m. Eastern.

KEY CONTENDERS

Songbird, by Medaglia d’Oro

Last 3 Beyers: 98-93-93

◗ Though she showed the ability to sit off another horse in winning the Summertime Oaks, she looms the controlling speed from the rail.

◗ Shows a bullet six-furlong workout at Del Mar in 1:11.40 before shipping here.

“The track at Del Mar is deeper than the one at Santa Anita,” Hollendorfer said. “She seemed to really like that.”

Carina Mia, by Malibu Moon

Last 3 Beyers: 98-94-88

◗ Came from off the pace to win the Eight Belles and Acorn, both one-turn races.

◗ In both of her two-turn starts, Carina Mia set the pace in winning the Golden Rod and finishing fourth in the Ashland.

◗ Mott seemed resigned to the likelihood that Carina Mia will have to be the one laying closest early to Songbird.

“Somebody’s going to have to be smart enough to not let her gallop on the lead in 50,” Mott said.