Catching Up With Unrivaled Belle

Unrivaled Belle wins the 2010 Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic. (Photos by Eclipse Sportswire)
After earning her first career win in her second start, Unrivaled Belle reeled off two more victories, including a 6 ¾-length runaway in the Real Prize Stakes. But those wins didn’t prepare her fans for what was to come.
Unrivaled Belle finished second after the Real Prize in the Grade 1 Gazelle Stakes, but it wasn’t until the next year, when she was 4, that she earned her first graded stakes win. Running 1 1/8 miles at Gulfstream Park, she led from start to finish, winning the Grade 3 Rampart Stakes by 1 3/4 lengths.
That win put her in the spotlight, but it was her next victory that showed how high the ceiling might be for Unrivaled Belle.
Entered in the 2010 La Troienne Stakes at Churchill Downs on Kentucky Oaks day, Unrivaled Belle was facing a filly named Rachel Alexandra who had run away with the win in the Oaks the year before, when she also won the Preakness Stakes. Rachel Alexandra had been named the 2009 Horse of the Year and racing against her was a tough challenge. But after sitting in second and third for most of the La Troienne, Unrivaled Belle challenged Rachel Alexandra for the lead in the stretch and the duel to the finish line showed just how gutsy both fillies were as they battled to the finish line. Unrivaled Belle put her head in front and narrowly got the win with the rest of the field five lengths behind the top two.
UNRIVALED BELLE DEFEATS RACHEL ALEXANDRA

The La Troienne was Unrivaled Belle’s second straight graded stakes victory and proved she could match strides with the best fillies and mares in the sport.
The La Troienne would be Unrivaled Belle’s final win until she lined up again at Churchill Downs later that fall for the Breeders’ Cup, but Unrivaled Belle still built a solid resume during that span with seconds in three Grade 1 races. She was 2 ¾ lengths behind Life At Ten in the Ogden Phipps Handicap at Belmont the week after the Belmont Stakes and closed that gap when they met again in the Beldame that fall, when she finished two lengths behind her familiar rival.
But returning to Churchill Downs on Nov. 5, Unrivaled Belle was finally on the winning side of her battles with Life At Ten in the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic.
While Life At Ten showed absolutely no interest in racing in the Ladies’ Classic after she broke from the starting gate, Unrivaled Belle put herself in the race and patiently raced in fifth place. Going into the far turn, Unrivaled Belle went four wide and rolled past the leaders as the field hit the stretch. While Blind Luck and Havre de Grace chased Unrivaled Belle down the stretch, she made the win look easy, with a deceivingly small 1 ¾-length victory. The fourth-place finisher was 7 ½ lengths behind the third-place finisher Havre de Grace and more than 10 behind Unrivaled Belle. 
2010 BREEDERS’ CUP LADIES CLASSIC

“She was on the bridle all the way,” jockey Kent Desormeaux told the Blood-Horse after the win. “I hadn’t moved on her until [the three-sixteenths pole]. I asked her, and she went. I saw Blind Luck on TV [infield screen] coming, and then I saw her again at the sixteenth pole and she hadn’t gained any ground on me. I was home then.”
The win was the third Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic win for trainer Bill Mott (Ajina, 1997; Escena, 1998) and the first of what would be a three-win streak in that race with Unrivaled Belle followed by Royal Delta in 2011 and 2012.
After a long winter break, Unrivaled Belle returned for her 5-year-old season in the Rampart Stakes, the race in which she had scored her first career graded stakes victory the previous year. But she showed that she needed the race when she finished third, 10 ¼ lengths behind the winner.
Just like in 2010, Unrivaled Belle had to battle the previous year’s Kentucky Oaks winner in the La Troienne Stakes when she matched up against Blind Luck in the 2011 edition. But unlike the previous year, she wasn’t able to get her head in front and finished a half-length behind Blind Luck with the rest of the field three lengths behind the pair.  
Unrivaled Belle was on schedule to follow the same path she had the following year to the Breeders’ Cup, heading to the Ogden Phipps for her next start. But known to get excited in the paddock, that trait proved to be her undoing as she hurt herself while waiting to be saddled before the race. As she had already been scheduled to be retired at the end of the year and it was found that the injury would sideline her for the rest of 2011, she immediately was retired.
Unrivaled Belle left the track with six wins, including three graded stakes victories, in 14 starts and $1,854,706 in earnings. From her 14 starts, she only finished off the board once, that race coming in the Grade 2 La Canada Stakes on a synthetic surface in early 2010.
But Unrivaled Belle didn’t roll quietly into retirement. In November of that year, she went through the auction ring at Keeneland as a broodmare prospect in a breeding stock sale that had many fireworks.
UNRIVALED BELLE BEFORE SELLING FOR $2.8-MILLION

Showing off her personality, she had to be led out of the ring as bidding reached $1.2-million. But that didn’t stop those who were keen to own the mare, and when the bidding stopped she sold to Betty Moran for $2.8-million, who bought her over the telephone.
Her first foal was a filly born on Feb. 7, 2013 by Rachel Alexandra’s sire, Medaglia d’Oro. Still unnamed, that filly went through the auction ring at the 2014 Keeneland September yearling sale, where she sold for $320,000 to Al Shahania Stud.
In 2014, Unrivaled Belle had a filly by Tapit and she is bred to Malibu Moon for a 2015 foal.