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Arklow Surges To Stretch-Running Victory As Hollywood Turf Cup Favorite

The class of the field ran like it Friday at Del Mar as Arklow tracked close to the leaders in the 12-furlong Hollywood Turf Cup, then got the jump on his chief rivals turning for home and went on to an impressive half-length score in the $203,500, Grade 2 headliner at the seaside track north of San Diego, Calif.

The 6-year-old entire horse by Kentucky sire Arch covered the mile and one-half distance on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course in 2:26.31, which established a stakes record and just missed the course record for the distance by 12 hundredths of a second.

Joel Rosario rode the veteran for the first time for trainer Brad Cox and put in a masterful bit of horsemanship on the long-winded bay. Arklow earned a first prize of $120,000 and now sports a sparkling racing record of 31 8-7-2 and $2,666,116 in earnings. The horse races for the partnership of Donegal Racing, Joseph Bulger and the Estate of Peter Coneway. The win was the first in a stakes at Del Mar for Cox.

Finishing second in the seventh local edition of the marathon was Manfred Ostermann's Laccario, who was a half-length ahead of Agave Racing Stable and Sam-Son Farm's Say the Word. Twelve horses ran in the race.

Arklow, who was the 19-10 favorite in the contest, paid $5.80, $3.40 and $2.80 across the board. Laccario, who was the second favorite in the race at 5-2, returned $3.80 and $3.00. Say the Word, the third favorite at just under 7-1, paid $3.80 to show.

“He broke well and we got a good spot,” said Rosario. “I stepped on the brakes a little bit because I was comfortable where we were. I saved ground with him, then moved up a little bit outside. I could tell we were going slow so I felt OK being closer with him. He was running good. When we turned for home, I knew he was a fighter and I knew he's be tough to beat. He finished strong. He's a good horse.”

Acclimate set all the fractions, going :49.64 for the opening half-mile, 1:14.55 for six furlongs, 1:38.78 for the mile and 2:02.62 for 10 furlongs. One of four starters for trainer Phil D'Amato, Acclimate faded to fourth.

“It kind of worked out the way we had drawn it up,” said Blake Cox, son and assistant to the trainer. “Joel (Rosario) was able to get a real good stalking position and then finish strong. What's next will be up to Jerry Crawford and Donegal Racing, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Pegasus World Cup Turf is on the radar. ”

Earlier in the afternoon, trainer Richard Baltas rung up three winners to forge to the front in the local trainer's race. He clicked with Yeng Again ($6.00) in Race 1, Gallovie ($7.40) in Race 3 and Lady On Ice ($4.40) in Race 4. He now has 10 winners at the session after 13 days of racing, putting him one up on rival Peter Miller. Baltas was the Bing Crosby Season leading trainer in 2019 with 11 firsts. Miller has won the fall session four different times. There are two days left in the meet.

Racing resumes Saturday at 12:30 p.m. with a nine-race card.

FRACTIONS:

The time of the race is a stakes record. (Old record 2:27.35.) The course record is 2:26.19, meaning Arklow missed that mark by .12 one-hundredths.

The stakes win was the first of the meet and first in the Hollywood Turf Cup for rider Rosario. He now has 29 stakes wins at Del Mar.

The stakes win was the first at Del Mar for trainer Cox.

The winning owners are Jerry Crawford of Donegal Racing from Des Moines, Iowa, along with Joseph Bulger or the Estate of Peter Coneway.

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Black Friday’s Hollywood Turf Cup Features Wide-Open Field Of 12 At Del Mar

A wide-open edition of the $200,000 Hollywood Turf Cup – a handicapping delight for those who like the challenge of a well-matched and highly competitive field – will be the day-after treat this Friday at Del Mar as a dozen turfers will ramble a mile and one-half in the seventh local running of the Grade II offering.

The marathon will go as Race 7 on the nine-race Thanksgiving Friday card. Though 14 horses have been named to run, only 12 will go due to safety considerations. The two also-eligibles will get a chance if there is a scratch in the main body of the field.

A trio of out-of-towners add special spice to the handicapping stew – Donegal Racing, Bulger and Coneway's Arklow, Manfred Ostermann's Laccario and Agave Racing Stable or Sam-Son Farm's Say the Word. They'll all be making their Del Mar debuts.

The race also has drawn its defending champion – Messineo or Sands' Oscar Dominguez, who rallied through the lane to win by a neck over turf star United in last year's running. It additionally has lured back a pair of runners who have been there before – Mr. & Mrs. Larry Williams' Ward 'n Jerry, third in the Turf Cup last year, and Little Red Feather and Tavares' Marckie's Water, fourth in the 2018 edition of the race.

Here's the lineup for the feature from the rail out with riders and morning line odds: Messino and Sands' North County Guy (Mario Gutierrez, 15-1); Oscar Dominguez (Irad Ortiz, Jr., 15-1); Little Red Feather, Jacobsen or Belmonte's Red King (Umberto Rispoli, 5-1); Say the Word (Flavien Prat, 5-1); Arklow (Joel Rosario, 5/2); Old Bones Racing Stable, Slam Dunk Racing or Nentwig's Gregorian Chant (Ricky Gonzalez, 20-1); The Ellwood Johnston Trust, Timmy Time Racing or Tevelde's Acclimate (Tyler Baze, 12-1); Laccario (Manny Franco, 3-1); Ward 'n Jerry (Jose Valdiva, Jr., 20-1); Benowitz Family Trust, Madaket Stables or Mathiesen's Proud Pedro (Juan Hernandez, 20-1); Marckie's Water (Tiago Pereira, 30-1), and Team Block's Another Mystery (Mike Smith, 10-1). The two also-eligibles are Red Baron's Barn or Rancho Temescal's Tartini (Baze on a second call, 30-1) and CYBT, Nentwig or Weiner's Fivestar Lynch (Abel Cedillo, 30-1).

If you look in the money-won column, it is “no contest” in this one with the 6-year-old Arch horse Arklow the biggest of the big dogs. The bay named for an Irish seaside town about 35 miles south of Dublin has banked $2,546,116 in his stellar career so far and shows seven wins and seven seconds from 30 starts. Twenty-four of those starts have been in stakes races, including outings in the last three runnings of the Breeders' Cup Turf. This will be the 12th different racetrack where the stretch runner has performed and the 11th time he's run a mile and one half. He's trained by Brad Cox, currently the second-leading trainer in the country with more than $17 million in purses this year.

Say the Word, a 5-year-old Canadian-bred gelding by More Than Ready, comes into the race off a smart win in the Grade I Northern Dancer Stakes at Woodbine on October 18. A winner of five races and $445,292 in purses, the stretch runner has been shifted to the barn of trainer Phil D'Amato for his West Coast debut.

Say the Word is one of four horses D'Amato has entered in the marathon. The others are Red King, winner of the Del Mar Handicap here on August 22; Gregorian Chant, a 4-year-old gelding looking for his first stakes win, and Acclimate, a 6-year-old gelding making his first start since running in the Breeders' Cup Turf in 2019 at Santa Anita.

Loccario is a German-bred 4-year-old colt who ran in his homeland up until an allowance start at Belmont Park on October 3. He was a Group I winner overseas and now takes his training from H. Graham Motion.

First post for the Friday card is 12:30 p.m.

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Del Mar’s Hollywood Turf Cup Could Have East Coast Flavor

Del Mar Thoroughbred Club racing secretary David Jerkens reports there is serious interest from several eastern trainers with likely runners for Del Mar's Grade 2 Hollywood Turf Cup scheduled for Friday, Nov. 27. The $200,000 race will be contested at a mile and one-half on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course.

Trainer Brad Cox has indicated his multiple-stakes winner Arklow, most recently seen running sixth in the G1 Breeders' Cup Turf at Keeneland, might be on board for the marathon. Trainer Mike Maker is considering two of his route runners in Big Agenda and Aquaphobia. The latter was a Grade 1 winner on the grass this year.

Also possible for the seventh local edition of the stakes is the German stakes winner Laccario for trainer Andreas Wohler, as well as trainer Graham Motion's Ziyad, a European import who ran third in the G3 Sycamore Stakes at Keeneland on Oct. 15 in his initial U.S. start.

The Hollywood Turf Cup will be part of a seven-stakes-all-on-the-grass bonanza that starts on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 26) and runs through the track's closing afternoon on Sunday, Nov. 29.

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Teaching An Old Horse New Tricks: Blinkers Have Arklow In Career Form For Breeders’ Cup Turf

Arklow's connections say he's a different horse since blinkers were added for the $1 million Calumet Farm Kentucky Turf Cup on Sept. 12, which proved his second triumph in Kentucky Downs' signature race in three years.

Saying he's different is saying something, given that Donegal Racing's 6-year-old Arklow had earned almost $2 million in 28 races without blinkers, including victory in New York's Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic last year.

The Brad Cox-trained Arklow was much more engaged for jockey Florent Geroux early on during their 1 1/4-length Kentucky Turf Cup score over Red Knight, who won Keeneland's Grade 2 Sycamore in his next start. Meanwhile, Arklow has trained up to his third attempt at Saturday's $4 million Longines Breeders' Cup Turf, having finished fourth in 2018 at Churchill Downs and a deceptively good eighth — losing by a total of 2 3/4 lengths — last year at Santa Anita.

Arklow is the 5-1 co-third choice with New York-based Channel Maker in the Breeders' Cup Turf at Keeneland, whose 1 1/2-mile distance is the same as the Kentucky Turf Cup. The 5-2 favorite in the field of 10 is 2018 Breeders' Cup Turf runner-up Magical and the 3-year-old Mogul, with both trained by Irish kingpin Aidan O'Brien.

“A lot of people have forgotten, or never even knew, that he had the best speed figures of anyone in last year's Breeders' Cup, even though he finished eighth,” Donegal president Jerry Crawford said Thursday, referencing the Ragozin handicapping “sheets” that chart form cycles and the comparative speed of horses while taking into account trouble encountered in a race. “That's how wide he was the whole time. He was in great form them, but he's in dramatically better form now.

“All you have to do is talk to Brad Cox,” said Crawford, whose partners with Donegal in Arklow are Joseph Bulger and Peter Coneway. “I, frankly, have never heard Brad so positive and confident in a horse as he is in Arklow on Saturday. Which is not to say that we don't have enormous respect for the Europeans. They're always very, very good – and we've got to beat Channel Maker, too. It's truly a world championship race. We think Arklow belongs and has an excellent chance. In Brad's words, as good a chance as anybody.”

Cox has said he was tempted before to add blinkers but that it was hard to make a change on a horse who was so productive. The opportunity came after Arklow finished fourth in Monmouth Park's Grade 1 United Nations, an audible called after he came in a disappointing sixth in Keeneland's Grade 2 Sycamore. The thought was that Arklow was leaving himself too much to do. Not only did the blinkers encourage the horse to position himself closer to the pace — as he had been in winning the Joe Hirsch last year — but his timed workouts in the morning have been much stronger.

Crawford quips that “a lot of owners would be smarter than to wait until a horse was 6 to try blinkers. That's on me. Brad put them on for a breeze after our ill-fated six-days rest before running at Monmouth Park. He called and said, 'We've got a whole new horse.'

“We saw his ability to get to the front (group) of horses in the Kentucky Turf Cup and was sitting on go the whole way, really, and not only held on but pulled away. I don't know how you could run a more impressive race than that.”

Said Cox: “That's the thing you do with blinkers: trying to get a horse more involved. He ran a great race at Kentucky Downs, really just kicked away from them late. Really pleased with his effort.

“He's doing better now than ever, so (we have) more confidence this year than the past,” he said of the Breeders' Cup Turf. “The Europeans are always tough in that division. We'll have to step up and run a race of a lifetime in order to win it. He's training like he's going to give us a race of a lifetime, so we're optimistic we'll be in the mix.”

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