Unique Bella strong favorite in Apple Blossom Handicap

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Unique Bella will race outside the friendly confines of Southern California for the first time in the Grade 1 Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn Park on Friday. She will be heavily favored to defeat six apparently overmatched rivals.

Unique Bella has a career record of 7 for 9, and all her races have come over fast tracks at either Santa Anita or Del Mar. For the Apple Blossom, she will have to fly from California to Little Rock and then van an hour to Oaklawn. She also likely will have to handle a wet racetrack.

As of Wednesday, the Weather.com forecast called for a 100 percent chance of rain in Hot Springs on Friday. Scattered thunderstorms in the morning were predicted to become more widespread during the afternoon.

Hall of Fame trainer Jerry Hollendorfer realizes Unique Bella will face new challenges this week but is confident she will be up to the task.

“She’s done everything we’ve asked her to do, basically,” Hollendorfer said. “Now we’re asking her to take her game on the road, and we expect she’ll do fine. If the track is wet, I think she will handle it just like she has handled everything else we’ve asked her to.”

Unique Bella was a leading contender for the Kentucky Oaks last year, but her season was compromised by a shin injury that sidelined her from March until October. She made three sprint starts in the fall, winning the Grade 3 L.A. Woman and Grade 1 La Brea and finishing seventh in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint. She was voted the Eclipse Award as North America’s champion female sprinter.

In her lone start this season, Unique Bella scored a handy nine-length victory in the Grade 2 Santa Maria at Santa Anita, which like the $700,000 Apple Blossom is a 1 1/16-mile race.

Don’t expect Unique Bella to sprint again anytime soon.

“The plan is to keep her going long this year,” Hollendorfer said. “I think she could do either for us, but that’s what we’ve planned.”

Unique Bella came down with a minor cough following the Santa Maria, which kept her out of the Grade 1 Santa Margarita at Santa Anita on March 17. She has since recorded four bullet workouts for the Apple Blossom, including a half-mile in 46.80 seconds at Santa Anita on Sunday.

“She galloped out very nice and easy,” Hollendorfer said. “I didn’t miss a whole lot of time with her because of the cough.”

Hollendorfer has developed at least 13 Grade 1-winning fillies or mares. Last year, he won Grade 1 races with Unique Bella, Songbird, and It Tiz Well. Songbird went 13 for 15 from the summer of 2015 through last summer, and now the torch has been passed to Unique Bella.

“I hate to compare horses, but most good ones can do things relatively easy, they have speed and can go long or short,” Hollendorfer said. “In that way, I would say Songbird and Unique Bella are comparable. But their temperaments are very different. Songbird loved to have people around and was approachable. Unique Bella is kind of standoffish.”

Trainer Wayne Catalano said Farrell would be scratched from the Apple Blossom if the track is wet and instead would target the La Troienne at Churchill Downs. If that is the case, Unique Bella will be the controlling speed.

Unbridled Mo shipped to Oaklawn on Monday from Florida for trainer Todd Pletcher. The three-time stakes winner finished fourth in the one-mile Royal Delta at Gulfstream Park in her 5-year-old debut.

Pletcher said he thinks she “will benefit from the race and the two turns” of the Apple Blossom.

Although Unbridled Mo has never raced on an off track, Pletcher is not concerned.

“We’re not going to sweat out the track conditions,” he said. “I think she’ll handle any surface. Obviously, there’s going to be a prohibitive favorite, so maybe a sloppy condition would help.

“It’s a Grade 1 opportunity, and that’s the only thing sort of missing on her résumé. So, if Unique Bella shows up and runs her race, then, you know, we’ll hope we can hit the board, and maybe if the favorite stubs her toe, then I think our filly, certainly her best race belongs with everyone else.”

Streamline, a 6-year-old mare trained by Brian Williamson, has won stakes at Oaklawn the past three years. She finished third in last year’s Apple Blossom to Stellar Wind and second in 2016 to Forever Unbridled. She finished eighth in the Grade 2 Azeri at Oaklawn on March 17, but Williamson said that was due to a bad trip.

“She just never kind of got an opening, and she kept getting hit by dirt,” Williamson said. “There were horses in front of her, and by the time it opened up, it was way too late.”

The Apple Blossom field is completed by multiple graded stakes winner Tiger Moth, Furiously Kissed, and Beach Flower.