Songbird Brilliant in Summertime Oaks Return Win

Unbeaten, uncontested, and unbelievable. Fox Hill Farm’s champion filly Songbird, who was knocked out of the Kentucky Oaks with a fever, returned in the grade 2 Summertime Oaks at Santa Anita Park in a dominating performance, proving she is still the one to beat.

Although usually on the lead, Songbird had to rate in second behind Bellamentary, who shot out of the gate to beat Songbird to the front. The two fillies remained close together as Bellamentary led the field through the opening quarter in :22.97, but did not hold her lead for too long. Songbird stuck her head in front to cruise to a half mile in :45.95 with jockey Mike Smith standing in the irons. The pair effortlessly led the way home through final fractions of 1:10.28, 1:35.71, and completed the 1 1/16 miles test in 1:42.63. Smith never sat down on the sensational filly and, as track announcer Michael Wrona put it, Songbird was “hand ridden, naturally” to a 6 1/2 length victory.

Bellamentary ran second just ahead of Kay Kay in third. That’s a Lady and Sutton’s Smile completed the order of finish.

“I knew she was going to fire today,” Smith said of Songbird. “I just tried to stay out of her way. She has wings on her hooves, I swear. She just goes into stealth mode. It scares me to think of how good she is. I try not to think of it.”

As the 1-9 favorite in the field of five, Songbird paid $2.10 across the board, Bellamentary, off at 7-1, delivered $2.40 and $2.10 to place, and Kay Kay paid $3.40 to show at 30-1.

Jerry Hollendorfer, trainer of Songbird, received an extra special 70th birthday present with Songbird’s win. He has conditioned the Medaglia d’Oro filly for all eight of her wins. “It was beautiful the way she just settled in,” he commented. “She was very comfortable, with her ears up, looking for something. The opportunity presented itself to be just a little off the pace and now we’ve shown everyone that we can do that.”

The current plan is to keep racing Songbird against other fillies and see what happens.

By Christine Oser