Del Mar | Horse Racing Free Tips

Orglandes Flies Late To Capture Red Carpet; Del Mar Pick 6 Hit For $248,187

New York invader Orglandes turned it on late under champion jockey Irad Ortiz, Jr. to take down honors by a half length in the Grade 3 Red Carpet Handicap at Del Mar on Thanksgiving Day at the seaside track north of San Diego, Calif.

The winner, who is owned by the partnership of Michael Dubb, Madaket Stables and Wonder Stables, is a 4-year-old French-bred filly by the Irish sire Le Harve and she ran the demanding 11 furlongs on turf in 2:15.85. As the 11-10 favorite, she returned $4.20, $3.40 and $2.80 across the board in capturing her initial stakes victory.

Finishing second in the seventh edition of the Grade 3 test for fillies and mares was Bederian, Kamberian or Nakkashian, et al's Going to Vegas and third was Hronis Racing's Quick.

Stewards lit the inquiry sign after Orglandes bumped with Blame Debbie in midstretch but unanimously ruled it did not affect the outcome of the race.

“I had no special instructions,” Ortiz said. “Just ride her. I liked where I was throughout the race. We thought this would be a better distance for her. The last time (winning allowance race at Belmont Park on October 9) it was too short for her (nine furlongs). She got 'racy' on me. But this distance is much better for her. She did well with it.”

Jose Hernandez, assistant to trainer Brown, said: “I wasn't really worried (about the inquiry). There was a little bump but nothing serious. Chad talked to the jockey in the morning. He said just to break and play off of it. It's a mile and three-eighth, a long race, so the jockey can do what he feels. The pace was good and he was in a really good position and then made a strong finish.”

Orglandes took home $60,000 from the $102,500 purse which pushed her career earnings to $154,772. She raced in her native France as a 2- and 3-year-old, then was purchased privately by American interests and her outing today was her third U.S. start. She's won four of 10 lifetime starts and now races out of the powerhouse barn of champion trainer Chad Brown.

Going to Vegas, off at odds of 15-1, paid $11.80 and $6.20, while Quick, who went postward at 8-1, returned $5.00 to show.

In the day's Pick Six wagering, a single ticket holder betting out of the Maryland hub was the only one to ring the bell with all six winners and took down a prize of $248,187. That fan had wagered $13,753 on his ticket.

Racing resumes at Del Mar Friday with first post at 12:30 p.m.

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Three Graded Stakes On Turf Highlight Saturday’s Blockbuster Card At Del Mar

Headed by the $300,000, Grade 1 Hollywood Derby, Del Mar will present one of the best racing cards seen at the Southern California shore oval in decades Saturday on the penultimate day of sport for the seventh Bing Crosby Season.

Nine races – averaging more than 10 horses apiece – including three graded turf stakes will make for a delightful afternoon of competition and wagering at the seaside oval with the fun kicking off at 12:30 p.m. PT.

The Hollywood Derby, run at nine furlongs on the turf, has drawn 13 3-year-olds – eight colts, four geldings and one filly. All the males will carry 122 pounds, while the filly gets a three-pound sex allowance. It will be run as the ninth and final race on the program.

A trio of Eastern-based trainers should have a big say in the headliner – Christophe Clement, Chad Brown and Thomas Bush. Clement has sent out a pair for the Grade 1 in Otter Bend Stables' Gufo and West Point Thoroughbreds, Freeman, Sandbrook or Manning's Decorated Invader. Brown has entered Klaravich Stables' Domestic Spending and Bush will be represented by the Mary Abeel Sullivan Revocable Trust's Get Smokin.

Here's the full field for the seventh local running of the race from the rail out with riders and morning line odds:

Wertheimer & Frere's Kanderel (Giovanni Franco, 30-1); Cannon Thoroughbreds' Smooth Like Strait (Umberto Rispoli, 7/2); Little Red Feather Racing or Naify's Scarto (Manny Franco, 10-1); Nguyen or Tran's Taishan (Jose Valdivia, Jr., 12-1); Exline-Border Racing, Bernsen, Hudock or Wilson's Storm the Court (Juan Hernandez, 8-1); Wachtel Stable or Gary Barber's California Kook (Ricky Gonzalez, 20-1); Roadrunner Racing or Sayjay Racing's Strongconstitution (Abel Cedillo, 20-1); Domestic Spending (Irad Ortiz, Jr., 5-1); Get Smokin (Mike Smith, 12-1); Decorated Invader (Joel Rosario, 3-1); R A Hill Stable or Reeves Thoroughbred Racing's Ever Dangerous (Victor Espinoza, 12-1); MyRacehorse.com or Spendthrift Farm's Lane Way (Drayden Van Dyke, 20-1), and Gufo (Flavien Prat, 4-1).

This actually will be the 79th edition of the Hollywood Derby with the first 72 presentations having taken place at the now-demolished Hollywood Park facility in Inglewood near LAX airport. When the race shifted to Del Mar in 2014, it got a big boost in its first local edition when soon-to-be Horse of the Year California Chrome won it smartly and thus ensured himself the first of his two HOY titles.

The chestnut colt Gufo, a son of the War Front stallion Declaration of War, shows four wins and a photo-finish second on his ledger for 2020. The stretch runner won the Grade I Belmont Derby last out on October 3 at the big New York track. Stablemate Decorated Invader has won five of nine starts and more than $500,000.

The Kingman gelding Domestic Spending has won three of four lifetime outings, including a tally in the Saratoga Derby Invitational in his most recent effort on August 15 at the upstate New York track.

Get Smokin, by Get Stormy, comes into the race off a score in the Grade 2 Hill Prince on the lawn at Belmont Park on October 18.

The local contingent is headed by multiple-stakes winner and $397,823 earner Smooth Like Strait and 2019 Juvenile champion Storm the Court, who has more than $1.3 million in the bank. That pair finished one-two in the Grade 3 La Jolla Handicap at Del Mar this summer, with the winner Smooth Like Strait coming back to capture the Grade 2 Twilight Derby at Santa Anita on October 18.

Earlier on the Saturday program there are a pair of grass stakes that also have drawn full fields.

The day's seventh race is the seventh local running of the Seabiscuit Handicap, a $200,000, Grade 2 offering that has drawn 13 older runners for a mile and one-sixteenth on the green.

Topweighted for the test is the eastern invader out of the powerhouse Chad Brown barn Flavius, a Juddmonte Farms homebred who'll pack 123 pounds and the nation's top money-winning jockey, Irad Ortiz, Jr., as he tries to add to his $541,151 bankroll.

Among his rivals are Agave Racing Stable, ERJ Racing, Madaket Stables or Rockin Robin Racing Stable's Bowies Hero, a multiple-stakes winner of more than $1.5 million; Sayjay Racing, Hall or Hubbard's One Bad Boy, last year's Queen's Plate winner; Peter Redekop's multiple-stake winner Anothertwistafate, who'll be making his first grass start, and Don't Tell My Wife Stables, Monomoy Stables or West Point Thoroughbreds' comebacking My Boy Jack, a now 5-year-old who was the buzz horse on the 2018 Derby Trail and who will be making his first start in more than a year.

Here's the full field for the Seabiscuit in post postion order with riders and morning line odds:

My Boy Jack (Victor Espinoza, 30-1); Paradise Road Ranch's Camino Del Paraiso (Tiago Periera, 15-1); Klaravich Stables' Spirit Animal (Manny Franco, 8-1); Bonne Chance Farm or Stud R D I's Imperador (Drayden Van Dyke, 15-1); Agave Racing Stable or Sam-Son Farm's Count Again (Juan Hernandez, 8-1); Lindley or Morton's Majestic Eagle (Mario Gutierrez, 15-1); R3 Racing or Calara Farms' Blitzkrieg (Abel Cedillo, 10-1); Anothertwistafate (Joel Rosario, 4-1); Baltas, Baltas, Ivarone, Ivarone, McClanahan, et al's Next Share (Jose Valdivia, Jr., 12-1); One Bad Boy (Flavien Prat, 12-1); Red Baron's Barn or Rancho Temescal's Tartini (Edwin Maldonado, 30-1); Flavius (5/2), and Bowies Hero (Umberto Rispoli, 6-1).

The afternoon's fifth race is for 2-year-old fillies and is named the Jimmy Durante Stakes. Fittingly, the $100,000 Grade 3 test is run at a mile on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course. Both the race and the grass course were named for the multi-talented entertainer who for many years made Del Mar his summer stop of choice.

Again, trainer Brown's entrant well could be the one to beat in the juvenile feature. That would be Head of Plains Partners' homebred Fluffy Socks, shipped in from Belmont and with a stakes tally on the grass – and a close miss in another – already on her ledger. Once again top rider Irad Ortiz, Jr. has the call and they'll break from Post 8 in the 13-horse lineup.

Here's the field for the Durante in post position order with riders and morning line odds:

Red Baron's Barn or Rancho Temescal's Inner Beauty (Tiago Pereira, 20-1); C T R Stables, Wonderland Racing Stables, Bambauer, et al's Plum Sexy (Juan Hernandez, 6-1); Harris Farms' Closing Remarks (Umberto Rispoli, 15-1); Altamira Racing Stable, CYBT, Lantzman or Nentwig's Nimbostratus (Ricky Gonzalez, 12-1); Godolphin's Javanica (Flavien Prat, 6-1); Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners or Winners' Consternation (Drayden Van Dyke, 20-1); Perry or Ramona Bass' Pizzazz (Mike Smith, 6-1); Fluffy Socks (5/2); Red Baron's Barn or Rancho Temescal's Quattroelle (Tyler Baze, 8-1); Bridlewood Farm's Bay Storm (Joel Rosario, 5-1); Breeze Easy's Polished Lady (Victory Espinoza, 30-1); Slam Dunk Racing's Magical Thought (Abel Cedillo, 12-1), and Ryan, Drown or Team Hanley's Invincible Gal (Manny Franco, 6-1).

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California COVID-19 Update

News last week that more than 200 people living or working on-site at Golden Gate Fields had tested positive for COVID-19, and that the facility would have to close its doors to live racing through November, arrived against a state-wide backdrop of rising cases, hospitalizations and COVID-related deaths.

As with Golden Gate, these trends have landed with subsidiary impacts. Over the weekend, L.A. County public health officials suspended outdoor restaurant dining. Before that, the county announced other restrictions, including curfews and capacity limitations at certain stores and other public places.

This has prompted some within the industry to wonder whether other California tracks might fall foul of the reimposition of business restrictions–as happened at Santa Anita earlier in the year, for example, when the facility was temporarily closed as the pandemic first took grip.

TDN reached out to representatives of Golden Gate for information on the status of the positive cases, along with the chances of live racing resuming in December. David Duggan, Golden Gate general manager and vice president, responded in a message Tuesday that an update would be arriving soon.

Los Alamitos has thus far avoided being shuttered as a result of the pandemic, though the facility did cause a stir earlier this year, with an outbreak among the SoCal jockey colony was blamed by some on lax protocols at the track’s jock’s room–an accusation track management hotly denied.

Los Alamitos is in Orange County, another region where COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths are on the rise. The facility is scheduled to conduct a live daytime Thoroughbred meet running Friday Dec. 4 through Sunday Dec. 20.

According to Jack Liebau, vice president of the Los Alamitos Racing Association, there are “at this moment” no confirmed COVID cases among people living or working on-site at the track, “that we know of.”

As a result, the anticipated December meet at Los Alamitos is expected to proceed as scheduled, said Liebau–though he emphasized the unpredictable nature of the pandemic.

“It could change within the hour,” he said, pointing to the vagaries surrounding testing and accuracy of results. At Golden Gate, for example, 95% of the cases were reportedly asymptomatic. “It’s a bad situation–I worry about myself getting it. It’s personal.”

Horses currently shipped from Golden Gate to other facilities, including Los Alamitos, are being sent without their usual grooms to be housed at the barn of a local trainer. As a consequence, the Los Alamitos program book will list the substitute trainer alongside that of the official trainer, Liebau explained.

The current 15-day Del Mar fall season is scheduled to end this Sunday. All jockeys flying in from out-of-state to ride at Del Mar this weekend tested negative 72 hours prior to arriving, “and they’re all getting tested again once they’re in San Diego,” said Josh Rubinstein, Del Mar Thoroughbred Club president. “They’ll also reside in the auxiliary jock’s room for the duration that they’re here.”

Unlike the recent Del Mar summer meet, comprising some 1800 horses and 1000 backstretch staff, the current fall meet is being conducted on a smaller scale–some 400 horses and 250 staff, said Rubinstein.

One backstretch worker tested positive for COVID at the start of the current meet, said Rubinstein. None since, he added. “We’ve been very diligent, reminding people of how serious this is,” Rubinstein said.

Further afield is the start of the next Santa Anita meet, penciled in for Dec. 26. According to Nate Newby, Santa Anita senior vice president, the facility hasn’t recently received communication from the LA County public health department “for a couple reasons.”

For one, “since they’ve implemented those new rules, and we’re not open for simulcasting, it wouldn’t really apply to us,” he said. “But with the meet being a month away, I’m sure they’ll be checking in.”

Secondly, the Arcadia facility hasn’t had a positive COVID case in 14 days, said Newby. “The threshold they’re looking at is if you have three in the last 14 days, then they start looking at your facility, the employees and anybody on site,” he said. “Knock on wood, we’re on a bit of a good stretch.”

The scheduled winter-spring meet will be conducted under similar conditions and restrictions as the recently concluded autumn meet, said Newby, not that the facility has loosened protocols in the interim. “We still have the backstretch really locked down to essential workers only,” he said.

“We’re just going to keep doing everything we’re doing, and hope,” Newby added, before pointing to the Moderna and Pfizer developed vaccines that are reportedly 90% effective. “I think, along with everybody, we’re rooting for the vaccine and other things to be in a better situation in a couple months.”

In a recently released draft interim plan for a vaccine rollout in California, such an effort will be done in three phases, beginning with health care and other essential workers, followed by other targeted groups including vulnerable populations and underserved communities. The third phase will encompass remaining populations.

According to California Horse Racing Board executive director, Scott Chaney, the board hasn’t yet opened a dialogue with the governor’s office about how rollout of a vaccine might overlap the racing industry.

“I know that’s a national conversation right now, and it seems like in the next month or two a vaccine might come online,” Chaney said. “But as far as I’m aware, the CHRB hasn’t had any discussions based on who gets them and so on and so forth.”

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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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