This column highlights the performances of maidens who have made no more than five starts and who either sold for more than $500,000 at public auction, have siblings that are graded/group winners, or have dams that are graded/group winners. BloodHorse research shows maiden winners who meet these criteria are more likely to go on to be graded stakes winners.
Los Alamitos Race Course
Kaleem Shah and Simon Callaghan are no stranger to good fillies. The owner/trainer pair have combined to win grade 1 stakes races with star distaffers Bellafina and American Gal in addition to a host of graded stakes races over the last decade. Their debut winner on July 8, the City of Light filly Benedetta , might be the latest card up the duo’s sleeve after her effortless frontrunning victory at Los Alamitos Race Course.
Although she has much to prove on the racetrack to catch up to Bellafina, Benedetta bares striking similarities to Shah’s three-time grade 1 winner. Bellafina, a daughter of Quality Road , dropped the hammer for $800,000 as a 2-year-old after catching the eye of shrewd bloodstock agent Ben McElroy at the 2018 Fasig-Tipton Florida Select Sale. She had recorded a :10 eighth-mile breeze days earlier at the under tack show.
Benedetta is sired by arguably Quality Road’s most talented son at stud in City of Light, captor of the 2019 Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1) and 2018 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (G1). Like Bellafina, Benedetta also fell on McElroy’s shortlist after cruising through a :9 4/5 eighth-mile during this year’s under tack show at the Ocala Breeders’ Sale Company March Sale of Two-Year-Olds in Training. Hailing from the immediate family of grade 1-winning sprinter Switch, it took a spirited bidding battle to get her but Benedetta fell into Shah’s hands for $750,000.
“It’s what the good horses cost,” Shah told BloodHorse after securing Benedetta in March. “Ben McElroy is the one who loved her, and so did Simon Callaghan, so we shall see if they are right or wrong. This time next year, we will find out.”
Four months after her tour through the sales ring, Benedetta began to vindicate her early admirers with a three-length debut score. After a slightly awkward start, the bay drove her way to the front and cruised around the Los Al oval virtually unchallenged under top California rider Juan Hernandez. She stopped the timer in a sparkling :57.92 for five furlongs over the fast main track.
Bendetta became the second stakes winner for her dam, the Grand Slam mare Tessie Flip. The mare had previously earned the title of black-type producer when her Scat Daddy filly Jo Jo Air tallied two stakes wins sprinting over the lawn in the 2019 William Walker Stakes at Churchill Downs and the 2020 Daisycutter at Del Mar.
Bellafina went on to capture seven graded stakes, including three grade ones, following her July Los Al debut. We’ll have to wait and see if Benedetta can blaze a similar path in the coming months with the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) held in her own backyard this year.
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