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Honor A. P. Tops Six Seeking Derby Points In Shared Belief Stakes

In a season of unusual happenings, Saturday's Shared Belief Stakes fits right in. The 3-year-old feature – which has drawn six very interesting runners — breaks new ground in that it is the first time a Kentucky Derby prep race has been conducted at the seaside oval in its 81-year history.

Of course, this is Kentucky Derby 146 upcoming and it's the first time it has been conducted on the first Saturday of September. That, too, fits right in.

Del Mar's $100,000 “Derby Prep” is normally a mile race at the end of August. But in anticipation of its new role, it was shifted to the beginning of August and lengthened to a mile and one sixteenth. It will carry Derby “points” of 50-20-10-5 for its first four finishers.

Heading the lineup are a pair of colts with short, but sparkling, resumes in C R K Stable's Honor A. P. and Pegram, Watson and Weitman's Uncle Chuck. The former has been hung the 8-5 morning line favorite, while the latter is right behind him at 9-5.

Honor A.P., a ridgling by Honor Code and a grandson of champion and prolific sire A.P. Indy, comes into the race off a tally in the Santa Anita Derby on June 6. He was second in the San Felipe at Santa Anita in his race prior to that and has been training forwardly at Del Mar for his “prep.” Mike Smith, who has handled Honor A.P. in all four of his starts so far, once again has the call Saturday.

Uncle Chuck, a colt by Uncle Mo, has only raced twice, but both times he was especially impressive. He scored by seven lengths in a Maiden Special Weight race at Santa Anita in June in his debut, then came right back on July 4 to handily capture the Los Alamitos Derby at the Orange County track. He, too, has looked good in the mornings in his Del Mar works and gets the saddle services of Drayden Van Dyke for the Shared Belief.

However, trainer Bob Baffert is expected to scratch Uncle Chuck from the Shared Belief in favor of the Travers at Saratoga.

The remainder of the lineup consists of Albaught Family stables or Spendthrift Farm's Thousand Words (Abel Cedillo the rider); Peter Redekop's Anneau d'Or (Victor Espinoza); John Sondereker's Kiss Today Goodbye (Umberto Rispoli), and Mangier, Tabor or Smith, et al's Cezanne (Flavien Prat).

The Shared Belief will be the second of 11 races on the Saturday card, which also features the Grade I, $250 Bing Crosby Stakes and the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association Stakes.

First post on all programs at Del Mar this summer is 2 p.m.

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Del Mar Will Increase Purses By 10 Percent, Add Stakes Race Back To Calendar

Del Mar Thoroughbred Club announced Thursday a 10 percent purse increase after a solid opening span of racing days during the month of July. The increase will be retroactive back to the track's first day, July 10.

Del Mar also announced the addition of a stakes race to its calendar – the $75,000 Del Mar Juvenile Filly Turf, a one-mile spin on the grass for 2-year-old fillies that will be held on Sunday, Sept. 6. The race had been a regular feature here the previous eight years, but had been dropped from the original stakes schedule due to belt tightening measures.

Between July 10 and July 27 Del Mar conducted seven days of racing and — though it has not had fans on board any of those days as a safety measure tied to the coronavirus pandemic — it saw wagering amounting to $133,841,412 flow from its online and satellite services, an increase of more than 5 percent over similar dates last year.

“Our horsemen have been terrific and our customers have responded very positively to what we're presenting,” said Tom Robbins, Del Mar's executive vice president for racing. “We've been running either 11- or 10-race cards and our field size is up to 8.6 in the early going. We're very pleased to offer this purse boost in conjunction with how the meet has unfolded so far.”

Last summer the track's average field size finished at 8.0 per race.

Del Mar's summer season is scheduled through Labor Day Monday, September 7 with racing on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

However, in response to the cancellation of racing on its second week, the track added Monday racing on July 27 with a 10-race card that drew a solid $11.6 million in wagers. Del Mar officials have indicated that they plan to make up their second and third missing days from week two with an added race day and additional races on scheduled cards.

“We are pleased to announce this well-deserved purse increase to the horsemen and women competing at Del Mar,” said Thoroughbred of Owners of California chairman Nick Alexander. “It is very encouraging to see the positive response at the entry box and from bettors on Del Mar's races. We look forward to continuing to partner with management on another world-class race meet at Del Mar.”

The track returns to action Friday with six stakes races planned over the three-day weekend. Among the upcoming highlights are the Grade I, $250,000 Bing Crosby Stakes at six furlongs and the $100,000 Shared Belief Stakes at a mile and one-sixteenth for 3-year-olds, both this Saturday. The Shared Belief will be the first time the track has offered a “points” race for the Kentucky Derby, which this year has been shifted from the first Saturday in May to the first Saturday in September.

Additionally, this forthcoming weekend will offer the foremost race at the stand for older fillies and mares, the Grade I, $250,000 Clement L. Hirsch Stakes on Sunday.

First post on all days throughout the meeting is 2 p.m.

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‘Give It A Try’: Anyportinastorm Gets His Grade 1 Shot In Bing Crosby

In keeping with the tradition of the racing family into which he was born, Blaine Wright has been a successful trainer for more than 20 years based in Northern California and Washington state.

Wright, who celebrated his 46th birthday on Saturday, is among a group of Northern California conditioners who've sent strings south to Del Mar in recent years, boosting the horse population and adding another factor for handicappers to ponder in races at every level.

Next Saturday, Wright has representatives entered in two of the three stakes on the card: Anyportinastorm in the Grade I, 6-furlong, $250,000 Bing Crosby, a “Win and You're In” qualifier for the $2 million Breeders' Cup Sprint in November at Keeneland, and Anneau d'Or in the $100,000, 1 1/16-mile Shared Belief Stakes, which offers points toward qualification for a spot in the Kentucky Derby.

Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert has three of the six 3-year-olds entered in the Shared Belief, no surprise considering his annual deep bench of Derby contenders. But it was a surprise Sunday when Baffert entered multi-stakes winning McKinzie in the Crosby.

Wright's reaction: “I'm the kind of guy that those things don't bother me,” he said by telephone Monday. “(Baffert's) got a heck of a stable and obviously he manages it well. I just worry about my own horses and doing what's best for them.”

Anyportinastorm is a 6-year-old owned by Peter Redekop. The son of City Zip has eight wins in 16 career starts, half of them in the last eight months and accomplished in Northern California or Washington, compiling total earnings of $313,025.

“He's been kind of a touchy horse in the past, but he's sound and doing good right now,” Wright said. “When Southern California shippers have come up to Golden Gate Fields or Emerald Downs he's fared well against them. We think it's time to try him against them down there. He's 6 years old and there aren't too many chances in a Grade I for him, so we thought we'd give it a try.”

Wright is inclined to take the “discretion is the better part of valor” approach with Anneau d'Or. The Medaglia d'Or colt, also owned by Redekop and a $480,000 auction purchase in April of last year, raised Kentucky Derby hopes when runner-up to Storm the Court in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile last November. But he has been off the board in three 2020 starts, all of them Grade I or II stakes.

“I'm 95 percent sure we're going to scratch and go to the Ellis Park Derby,” Wright said of the Shared Belief. “We were supposed to run in the Los Alamitos Derby (July 4), but he came down with something for about 36 hours that had him kind of blah, off his feed and with a small temperature.

“He was fine in a day or so and he had a really good workout (5 furlongs, 1:00.40, 12th of 96 at the distance, July 19). But we're planning on shipping to Kentucky and then staying there up to the Derby.”

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Del Mar Cards Special Monday Racing Program As COVID-19 Make-Up Day

With the exceptions of Labor Day Mondays, racing on the first day of the week hasn't happened at Del Mar in many moons. In fact, the last time Monday programs were par for the course was when the seaside track used to race six days a week, a situation last realized in 2008.

But this coming Monday racing will be back on the front burner featuring a 10-race card. And track officials will be interested to see how fans across the country respond to it at their mutuel windows — at satellites or online. The sense is, with Del Mar being the “big dog” among all tracks running that day, it might prove very noteworthy in the counting house.

Del Mar is racing this Monday as a “make up” for one of the three days lost last weekend to jockey woes with the COVID-19 pandemic. The other two “missing” days are expected to be made up further along in the summer season that goes forward to Labor Day Monday, September 7.

This Monday approximately a dozen other “major” tracks across the country will be in action. On an average weekend at this time of year, there'd be half as many more of those tracks doing business and competing for the wagering dollars. Obviously, less competition could prove beneficial. How much so is uncertain, but the Del Mar folks ought to have a pretty good idea after the last race is run Monday afternoon.

The feature race Monday is an allowance test for 3-year-olds and up at a mile on the grass course that has drawn seven horses. The morning line favorite in the turfer is Keith Brackpool's Mesut, who is trained by Carla Gaines and will be ridden by the track's leading rider, Umberto Rispoli.

First post Monday, as it is on all racing cards at the shore track this summer, is 2 p.m.

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