Bellafina might be the next big thing
Filly dominates in the Debutante at Del Mar and appears headed for Breeders’ Cup.
DEL MAR — It was expected to be a three-horse race, but in the end it really was all about one. Bellafina won the Grade 1 $300,000 Del Mar Debutante on Saturday, placing her squarely in the sights of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies and maybe top honors for 2-yearold fillies.
Her dominating win by 41⁄4 lengths over previously unbeaten Brill and Mother Mother was even more effortless than it sounded. It was then that trainer Simon Callaghan upped the stakes.
“I told Kaleem that she’s the best filly I’ve trained,” Callaghan said of owner Kaleem Shah. “She’s pretty special.”
Normally a trainer engaging in hyperbole about a horse is nothing new. But with that statement, Callaghan was saying she’s better than Eclipse Award-winning Abel Tasman, who has won six Grade 1 stakes.
That was a reminder of one of the more distressing times for Callaghan. He had nurtured Abel Tasman through three wins in five races, including a win in the Grade 1 Starlet Stakes. But before the Santa Ysabel Stakes, the China Horse Club bought into the filly. Through a mixup, the jockey did not wear the silks of the China Horse Club in the Santa Ysabel and Callaghan was fired. The filly went to Bob Baffert, where she won the Kentucky Oaks and two more Grade 1s last year.
Representatives of the China Horse Club, which was part owner of Justify, still have not talked about the incident.
So now, Callaghan has potentially a new superstar filly.
“I hope he’s right,” Shah said of Callaghan’s statement. “He’s been high on her for a very long time and he thinks she’s better than Abel Tasman.”
Jockey Flavien Prat told Shah that the filly could have gone to the lead at any time. She ran with Mother Mother down the backstretch, but with a quartermile to go, she just accelerated and breezed home.
“She was more aggressive today,” Prat said. “I think that race the other day [when she broke her maiden] got her in that mode. She was on it.”
Bellafina paid $6.60, $3.20 and $3.20. Mother Mother was second, followed by Boujie Girl, Brill and Watch Me Burn.
Brill was the less-thaneven-money favorite, but the Jerry Hollendorfer filly just looked flat.
“That wasn’t her today,” jockey Drayden Van Dyke said.
Bellafina will now be pointed toward the Chandelier Stakes at Santa Anita on Sept. 29. And from there, if all goes well, the Breeders’ Cup awaits.
Prat also won the other stakes, the Grade 2 $200,000 John C. Mabee Stakes. He guided Vasilika to a 11⁄2-length win in the 11⁄8-mile turf race for fillies and mares. It was her seventh win in eight starts this year, but none of the victories were at this high level of competition.
Vasilika bided her time mid-pack and was third at the top of the stretch. She passed leaders Fahan Mura and Meal Ticket and held off a late rush from favorite Cambodia.
The win for Hollendorfer no doubt helped erase the memory of Brill’s lackluster performance in the Debutante.