Songbird continues her brilliance in the Santa Ysabel
Some horses win a lot of races, others do so and make it look easy. Songbird, the undefeated daughter of Medaglia d’Oro, made it six wins in a row to start her career on Saturday easily besting a field of nine in the Grade III Santa Ysabel at Santa Anita Park. The $100,000 event contested at a mile and one sixteenth over the main track was a glorified paid workout for one of the best young fillies the States has seen in some time. The Fox Hill Farms runner finished a measured three and three quarters lengths ahead of Land Over Sea in second. It was three and a half back to Mokat in third.
As was expected, Mike Smith and Songbird bounced out of the gate, took the lead under early fractions of 23.20 and 46.02. Jade Princess and Not Now Carolyn pressured the heavy 1-9 favorite on the backstretch, but began to lose ground before they hit the far turn. As they entered the stretch, it was clear that the race was for second once again as the Jerry Hollendorfer trainee distanced herself from the competition while not being urged whatsoever by her Hall of Fame rider. She won in hand in the end. After the race Smith proclaimed, “It was incredible. I got a bit star struck when I looked over at the big screen to see if I needed to do a little bit of work and I was just in awe of how easily she was doing things, again.
As she has done in the past, the Bellamy Road filly Land Over Sea was running well late, but could do no better than second against the classy Songbird. The Reddam Racing runner saved ground early and on the backstretch, angled off the rail before the stretch, moved three-wide in the lane and finished as the convincing runner-up. The Richard Baltas conditioned daughter of Uncle Mo, Mokat ran a decent third after trying the lawn last time out against high level optional claiming foes.
The easy victory on Saturday afternoon was a perfect prep for the upcoming races on Songbird’s itinerary. With two Grade I events up next, she should be fit and ready to take on the best fillies around. According to Hollendorfer, “The Santa Anita Oaks (on April 9) would be next and if she looks real good, we’ll try to think about Kentucky (the Oaks.)” He continued, “ I don’t like to think too far ahead but that’s our long-term goal.”
An ideal scenario would set things up for a showdown with undefeated filly Cathryn Sophia, who also is undefeated a few months into her three-year-old campaign. The daughter of Street Boss has been ultra impressive thus far, but has yet to try two turns. Let’s hope both young ladies continue with no issues on their path to Churchill Downs the first Friday in May for what would be a highly anticipated showdown in Louisville.
The Santa Ysabel was the fifth race on Saturday’s nine-race card in Arcadia, California. The winner paid $2.10, $2.10 and $2.10. The runner-up returned $3.80 and $2.60. Mokat paid $5.40 to Show. The winning trifecta combination of 6-2-10 paid $27.50 on a $1 wager. With $823,407 of the $886,851 wagered to Show on Songbird, those taking wagers on the event lost a total of $158,462.66.