The international flavor in Friday’s $500,000 Grade 1 Apple Blossom at
Oaklawn Park has been amplified this year with the inclusion of Belle Watling in
the spring championship for female horses.
The 4 1/2-year-old mare was the Chilean Horse of the Year last year with 13
wins from 15 starts in her home country. She’s now owned by a syndicate that
includes her French-born, globetrotting trainer Patrick Biancone and she
reunites with her jockey from Chile in Hector Berrios for her first Grade 1
attempt in the United States after two disappointing races earlier this year in
Florida.
“She’s the best to ever run (in Chile), there’s no question about that,”
Biancone said Thursday morning. “It has just been a matter of getting
acclimatized to her new home.”
Biancone was prepared for that transition period to take some time. He helped
purchase the filly and brought her to Florida late last year. In Chile, she had
won consistently on turf and dirt during her streak and her first start at
Gulfstream Park was ambitious — trying to stay 11 furlongs on turf in that
track’s Grade 3 The Very One. Under 123 pounds, she faded to fourth. Belle
Watling followed that with a third-place finish in an allowance/optional claimer
on dirt.
Because she was bred in the Southern Hemisphere, she’s a half-year behind
most of her American counterparts, and Biancone thought she would need some time
to catch up.
“The reason we are here is she suddenly started training better than anything
she had done since coming to the U.S.,” he said. “She started doing everything
really well and it wasn’t like that before her first two races. Coming from
Europe or South America, I automatically assume it will take about four to six
months to acclimatize. She began to train better and we are right around
five-and-a-half months, so that’s why we sent her to this race. Hopefully she
shows her best.”
Biancone is eager to reunite Belle Watling with Berrios, but not because he
was dissatisfied with the work of Edgar Prado or Julien Leparoux, the men in the
saddle for her two U.S. efforts. Berrios moved to America this winter trying to
establish himself here with the help of agent and Hall of Fame retired jockey
Jose Santos.
“I don’t know if he followed her here specifically, but he won 13 races with
her in Chile,” Biancone said. “He certainly must know something about her. He
has immigrated here and is trying to get going, and this mare, if she shows her
best, will certainly help him.”