The Santa Ynez S.-G2, run January 6, 2019 at Santa Anita, was hyped as a two-horse race, and commentators noted that they could not separate Bellafina and Mother Mother, as the two were both so talented. Wrong! This wasn’t so much a horse race, or even a two-horse race, as it was a demonstration of breathtaking ability and superiority on the part of the gorgeous Bellafina. She won by 8 ½ lengths, her separation from the rest of the field growing as she neared the finish line.

Even in the saddling paddock and the post parade, Bellafina looked superior, twice the size of the diminutive Mother Mother, and with a huge hip (not surprising with her Malibu Moon dam) and an attitude that indicated she had a big race in her. Not even the Baffert magic could dislodge her from her superiority.

Bellafina’s record is now six starts, four wins, and one second, but her significant loss, fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Filly S.-G1, may unfortunately be her most memorable race. Heavily favored, she simply did not fire. Nominated for an Eclipse Award for best two-year-old filly, naysayers have negated her chances of winning due to that one major negative appearance. As a winner of over $700,000, her impeccable though slightly flawed record, and her overwhelming victory in the Santa Ynez, this may well be a shame. The filly, owned by Kaleem Shah and trained by Simon Callaghan, was an $800,000 Fasig Tipton March 2018 sale, and it would seem that Shah and Callaghan made a wise purchase. Quality Road, her sire, has continued to come on as a dominant force in the breeding world, as has Malibu Moon as a broodmare sire.

As the leading third crop sire of 2018 and a top ten sire nationally, Quality Road continues to excel, and his stud fee reflects this, having risen for this year to $150,000, and sons like the precocious Klimt are already standing at stud in Kentucky. Both he and his sire, Elusive Quality, however, have rarely been bred to Seattle Slew/A.P. Indy line mares with great success, which has led a leading nicking service to declare Bellafina’s pedigree to deserve only a grade of C.

This grade ignores some basic tenets of breeding to both Elusive Quality and Quality Road. Elusive Quality likes nothing better in his mares than inbreeding to Northern Dancer, with a preponderance of his best runners being 4 x 4 Northern Dancer, especially via Nijinsky II. Quality Road himself exemplifies this cross, as he is out of the Strawberry Road mare Kobla, a great granddaughter of Nijinsky. Royal Academy mares have similarly found success with Elusive Quality, and he is a son of Nijinsky.

Quality Road seems quite specific in his success with Northern Dancer-line mares. He prefers to get his Northern Dancer through Deputy Minister (and his sons like Dehere), Storm Cat (and his sons), Dixie Union (who provides that dose of Seattle Slew through his son, Capote), and of course Nijinsky II. Abel Tasman, his multiple Grade One winning daughter, provides Deputy Minister, while Klimt has a Dixie Union dam, and Hootenanny has a son of Storm Cat as his broodmare sire.

It isn’t unusual to see two or three different strains of Northern Dancer in Quality Road’s best offspring, and Bellafina is no anomaly. She is 5 x 6 Northern Dancer through Quality Road (with, remember, that dose of Nijinsky) and 7 x 5 Northern Dancer on her dams’ side, through Nijinsky yet again, in the dams’ side of Malibu Moon, and through Northern Dancer himself, the sire of Not for Love’s dam, so all of the Northern Dancer comes through mares, insuring that large heart gene. As these columns have noted before, there simply doesn’t seem to be such a thing as too much Nijinsky.

It should also be noted that the great California Chrome is out of a Not for Love mare. Not for Love is by Northern Dancer himself, and his dams’ side is a wealth of genetic material, including Secretariat’s dam, the great Princequillo Blue Hen Somethingroyal, and Buckpasser, with his Blue Hen dam tracing back to La Troienne, adding pedigree power to his Northern Dancer dose. As well, Not for Love seems particularly suited to nicking with Elusive Quality, as he is out of the Hero’s Honor mare, Touch of Greatness, and Hero’s Honor is bred so similarly to Not for Love, being by Northern Dancer, and out of the tail female La Troienne mare, by Graustark, Glowing Tribute.

As long as we’re discussing both Blue Hen mares in Bellafina’s pedigree and the ridiculousness of her C nicking grade, we must note one of the most basic stakes producing crosses, that of Mr. Prospector and Seattle Slew. I’m amazed that both Elusive Quality and Quality Road haven’t received more Seattle Slew line mares with whom to create big winners. Both Mr. Prospector, the sire of Quality Road’s grandfather Gone West, and Seattle Slew, the grandfather of Malibu Moon, are direct, tail female descendants of Blue Hen Myrtlewood, and this cross is a classic, stakes producing combination. Lest we forget, Seattle Slew and his son A.P. Indy add multiple doses of La Troienne themselves, including inbreeding to the great Buckpasser, who makes an appearance in Bellafina’s pedigree, as already mentioned.

One of the other elements that makes an A.P. Indy line mare, such as Malibu Moon, Bellafina’s broodmare sire, such a good nick for Quality Road is that Quality Road’s fourth dam, Dear April, is by My Babu, making Bellafina 6 x 5 My Babu, which also crosses so brilliantly with the Hail to Reason/Turn-to in Seattle Slew. But this is strengthened by what is just off the five-cross pedigree of Bellafina, as her fifth dam, Dusk, was by Olden Times, out of Tropic Star, by Tropique. Hardly household names.

Yet Dusk is double bred Tourbillon, through Djebel, the sire of My Babu, on her sire’s side, and through Tornado on her dam’s, a very unusual sighting of multiple strains of Tourbillon. Tourbillon is important because not only was he the grandsire of My Babu, but was also the sire of Ambiorix and the great grandsire of Klarion. The My Babu/Ambiorix/Klarion combination, which has pretty much disappeared from contemporary race horses, was responsible for many stakes winners, because the three are so similar in pedigree, owing to the appearance of Tourbillon and the great mare Lavendula.

Turn-to, who appears in the Seattle Slew line through his son Hail to Reason, is also closely bred to those three antiques, as his grandmother was also Lavendula. So those two, far off doses of Tourbillon in Bellafina’s pedigree pull the pedigree together in creating this wonderful stakes winning filly.

It's not unusual to see multiple doses of Somethingroyal and La Troienne in current stakes horses, and Bellafina certainly has those. But the way her pedigree harkens back to early twentieth century genetic relatives just proves once more that history repeats itself, and that researching farther back than the five generations offered in most online pedigrees reveals strengths that cannot be denied.

-- Roberta Smoodin