Unique Bella one of three weekend stakes runners for Hollendorfer

There are those who have mentioned Unique Bella in the same breath with her stablemate, two-time Eclipse Award champion filly Songbird, although Jerry Hollendorfer likely would say that’s putting the cart before the horse, although he allows that Unique Bella is “a special filly.”

The daughter of Tapit tries two turns for the first time in Sunday’s Grade II Las Virgenes Stakes for three-year-old fillies at one mile, and is the 3-5 morning line favorite to succeed.

Unique Bella won the Grade II Santa Ynez Stakes at seven furlongs by 7 ½ lengths while geared down in her three-year-old debut, beating stablemate It Tiz Well. Competition is likely to be stiffer Sunday in the form of Eclipse Award champion two-year-old filly Champagne Room, who has been firing morning bullets for her three-year-old debut.

Trained by Peter Eurton, Champagne Room has not raced since winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita on Nov. 5.

The Las Virgenes, race six of eight: Mopotism, Flavien Prat 6-1; Champagne Room, Mario Gutierrez, 5-2; Mistressofthenight, Corey Nakatani, 15-1; Unique Bella, Mike Smith, 3-5; and Miss Southern Miss, Kent Desormeaux, 6-1.

Jerry Hollendorfer has horses entered in six races this weekend, three of them stakes, so the Hall of Fame trainer and his assistant Dan Ward will be busy, as is their wont.

The 70-year-old Hollendorfer adheres to the U.S. Postal Service credo. Be it rain, sleet or snow, the mail must get through.

Hollendorfer has Ike Walker entered in the Grade II Palos Verdes Stakes for four-year-olds and up at six furlongs and Sheer Flattery in the Robert B. Lewis Stakes, both on Saturday. Sunday, Unique Bella tries two turns for the first time in the Grade II Las Virgenes Stakes for three-year-old fillies at one mile.

Ike Walker sticks out like a sore thumb in the Palos Verdes, because on form, he doesn’t seem to fit. The five-year-old Bellamy Road gelding was claimed for $50,000 last out when he finished third on a wet/fast track at a mile Jan. 1. Prior to that, his previous 12 starts were all a mile or longer.

“The reason we nominated and are running is because we’ve been entering him in other races and they didn’t go,” Hollendorfer said. “I don’t just want to just keep sitting on him. I didn’t have a race picked out for him at Golden Gate, and we couldn’t get in here.

“We heard the Palos Verdes was going to come up short so we nominated and decided to run.

“It’s probably a bad spot, but if you just keep training them, they can get hurt.”

As to Sheer Flattery, who won a maiden allowance race by a nose on a sloppy track Dec. 31, Hollendorfer said, “We think he’s been training well and if he can transfer the race he ran last time to this one, he should have a fairly good chance.”