michael stidham | Horse Racing Free Tips

Princess Grace Favored In Del Mar’s Closing Day Matriarch

Del Mar's Bing Crosby Season #8 will come to a sweet close Sunday with a nine-race card topped by the Grade 1, $400,000 Matriarch Stakes.

Besides the filly and mare grass feature, there also will be the Grade 3, $100,000 Cecil B. DeMille Stakes for 2-year-olds. The Matriarch has lured seven for its mile journey, while the DeMille has brought out 11 for its eight furlongs on the green.

The 15-day Crosby Season at the seaside track north of San Diego, Calif., featured the 38th edition of the Breeders' Cup World Championships, which established a new betting mark for the two-day, 14-race extravaganza. Additionally, the seaside track put on its own 13-day session climaxed by a seven-stakes, all on grass, four-day finish that puts a fine bow on a fine racing run.

Heading the 41st edition of the Matriarch – the last seven of which have been held at Del Mar – is Susan and John Moore's Princess Grace, a 4-year-old filly by the Japanese-bred stallion Karakontie who has won six of her eight lifetime starts, including a tally at Del Mar this past summer in the Grade 2 Yellow Ribbon Handicap. Trainer Michael Stidham sticks with Kent Desormeaux as her rider.

Princess Grace will have to have her running shoes on tight Sunday, though, with trainer Chad Brown having entered two of his mares in the test, including last year's winner Viadera.

The Matriarch will be seventh race on the Sunday card.

In the Cecil B. DeMille, which goes as Race 3, the horse to beat appears to be another Brown runner in Verbal, who has only made one starts, but it was a goodie. He won easily over a field of straight maidens at Belmont Park on October 10 at a mile on the grass and will have Jose Ortiz back again on board on Sunday.

Here are the full fields for both races from the rail out with riders and morning line odds:

Matriarch Stakes: Princess Grace (8/5); Calvin Nguyen's Bodhicitta (John Velazquez, 12-1); Juddmonte's Viadera (Flavien Prat, 5/2); Aoshiba Corporation's Fast Jet Court (Drayden Van Dyke, 20-1); Heider Family Stables' Zofelle (Umberto Rispoli, 5-1), and Peter Brant's Regal Glory (Jose Ortiz, 9/5).

Cecil B. DeMille Stakes: Red Baron Barn or Rancho Temescal's Optimising (Umberto Rispoli, 3-1); Merecado Racing's Khantaro d'Oro (Juan Hernandez, 12-1); Alvarez Racing Stables' Groovy Huey (Edwin Maldonado, 30-1); West Point Thoroughbreds or Barker's Derecho Dandy (Joe Bravo, 5-1); Drakos or Hanson's Barsabas (Tyler Baze, 12-1); Homme or DeMaio's Il Capitano (John Velazquez, 20-1); Kretz Racing's Cabo Spirit (Victor Espinoza, 6-1); Featherston, Lambert or Underhill, et al's Stotland (Kent Desormeaux, 30-1); Glenn Sorgenstein WC Racing and Great Friends Stable, et al's Get Back Goldie (Kyle Frey, 6-1); Verbal (5/2), and Exline-Border Racing, Wilson, et al's Lottery Pick (Flavien Prat, 8-1).

First post for the Sunday finale will be 12:30 p.m.

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Del Mar Prepares For Turf Festival To Close Out Bing Crosby Season

The close of entries and post position draw for Del Mar's Thanksgiving Day card that includes the $100,000 Grade 3 Red Carpet Stakes is set for Satuday afternoon. On Sunday, similar procedures will be conducted for the Friday program with the $250,000 G2 Hollywood Turf Cup at the Del Mar, Calif., racetrack.

So begins the staging process for the four-day, seven-stakes Turf Festival that will wrap up the Bing Crosby Season at the track. And if the seven previous such closing stands of the fall meeting are any indication, the eager anticipation felt by horsemen and fans is more than justified.

A contingent of quality shippers from the east will arrive Monday or Tuesday in numbers that racing secretary David Jerkens expects will be similar to past years from the stables of trainers whose names top, or are highly stationed, on national lists.

Chad Brown has won nine Turf Festival races, with emphasis on the G1 events – Saturday's $400,000 Hollywood Derby and Sunday's $400,000 Matriarch – where he's notched three in each. He's expected to put seven or eight on the westbound plane, among them defending Matriarch champ Viadera. Brown has multiple graded stakes winner Public Sector and Sifting Sands nominated for the Hollywood Derby and Turf Cup nominee Rockemperor stabled at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif., and available for the relatively short trip down the freeway.

Michael Stidham's Princess Grace, who shipped in to win the Yellow Ribbon in the summer and returned for a third-place finish as favorite in the G2 Goldikova during Breeders' Cup Week, has remained on the grounds and is nominated for the Matriarch. So has Goldikova runner-up Zofelle for trainer Brendan Walsh.

Trainer H. Graham Motion, who has notched Red Carpet, Jimmy Durante, and Seabiscuit Stakes wins in past Turf Festivals, has a handful of horses on-site and could bring in reinforcements considering his six stakes nominees. Ken McPeek has indicated he will be sending Camp Hope, a winner of two starts in October at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Ky., and Greg Sacco is sending It Can Be Done off a third-place finish, beaten two lengths by Public Sector in the Hill Prince on October 23 at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y.

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Gulfstream’s Rainbow 6 Jackpot Pool Guaranteed At $300,000 Sunday

Monarch Stables Inc.'s Last Leaf, who captured the Hollywood Beach Stakes of turf in her most recent start, will make her debut over Gulfstream's Tapeta racing surface in Sunday's featured Race 7 optional claiming allowance at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla.

The 5 ½-furlong sprint for 2-year-old fillies will be highlighted in the Rainbow 6 sequence, which will span Races 4-9. The jackpot pool will be guaranteed at $300,000 Sunday at Gulfstream Park, where the popular multi-race wager went unsolved Saturday for the 11th racing day following a $461,035.47 jackpot payoff Oct. 9.

Last Leaf has an experience edge over her five rivals, having won three of six starts while demonstrating the versatility to win on both dirt and turf. The daughter of Not This Time, who broke her maiden on a fast main track in her second career start, will seek her third straight victory Sunday. She ran away with a six-furlong optional claiming allowance by 10 ¾ lengths over a sealed sloppy track Sept. 4 before scoring a narrow victory in the five-furlong Hollywood Beach on turf three weeks later.

“I asked for this race,” trainer Ronald Spatz said. “It will be fun to find out if she can win on four different surfaces. She's won on dirt, a sloppy track, and turf.”

Miguel Vasquez has the return mount.

“She's a nice little filly. She's got little feet; she's blocky; and she runs hard,” Spatz said. “She's a good little sprinter.”

Trainer Michael Stidham, who will maintain a division at Gulfstream for the first time during the Championship Meet, will be represented by Godolphin's Kit Keller, who is coming off a debut victory in a five-furlong maiden special weight race on turf at Laurel Sept. 9.

Edgard Zayas has the call on the homebred daughter of Ghostzapper.

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Motion, Stidham Look Ahead To Gulfstream’s New Tapeta Track

With the onset of year-round racing at Gulfstream Park this year due to the closure of Gulfstream Park West, a Tapeta track has been constructed to provide a measure of relief to the turf course while offering a varied racing program for horses of all abilities – and Graham Motion and Michael Stidham are hardly complaining.

The pair of highly respected trainers have enjoyed significant success while training and racing horses on all-weather surfaces, as well as on dirt and turf.

“I applaud Gulfstream for making that move. I'm a little surprised that more tracks haven't done it to have an alternative track, whether it be an alternative surface to run on or an alternative surface to run on when the races come off the turf,” said Motion, whose stable is based at Fair Hill, the Elkton, MD training center, where a Tapeta surface is available for training year round. “I think it makes so much sense, and I'm excited that Gulfstream has gone forward with this.”

Stidham, who also trains at Fair Hill during the good-weather months, has applied for stalls for Gulfstream's upcoming Championship Meet for the first time.

“I've always been a trainer who likes the synthetic. I trained at Arlington over 20 years, and we loved training on the synthetic. We're at Fair Hill in the summer, and we have a Tapeta track there,” Stidham said. “We like it, and we think it's a good addition.”

Gulfstream Park is on the verge of making Thoroughbred racing history – scheduled to become the first racetrack to conduct racing on dirt, turf and all-weather surfaces when the first races are run over the Tapeta track Thursday, opening day of the Fall Meet.

One of Stidham's most memorable successes on an all-weather track came in a maiden special weight race at Arlington on Sept. 18, 2010.

“A million-dollar earner that I had, Willcox Inn, broke his maiden on it, and he went on to be a graded-stakes winner. I'll never forget that his first start was at Arlington against another first-time starter, Animal Kingdom. Willcox Inn and Animal Kingdom both made their first starts in the same race at Arlington,” said Stidham, whose multiple graded-stakes winning son of Harlan's Holiday prevailed by 2 ¾ lengths over Animal Kingdom, who rallied after being caught in traffic. “It was kind of interesting to see both those horses go on to be top horses.”

The Motion-trained Animal Kingdom, of course, went on to win the 2011 Kentucky Derby (G1) after qualifying with a victory in the Spiral (G2) over Turfway's all-weather surface. The son of Leroidesanimaux also went on to win the 2013 Dubai World Cup (G1) after prepping with a second-place finish behind Point of Entry in the Gulfstream Park Turf (G2).

“I think he was a brilliant horse who's an exception to all the rules. I think it's fair to say he was a brilliant horse – he won the two biggest races in the world – the Dubai World Cup and the Kentucky Derby,” Motion said. “When you have horses of that caliber, they usually handle what you throw at them. He was an exceptional horse. The chances of me having another one like him in my lifetime are very unlikely.”

Motion said he expects lower-level horse to benefit most from the addition of a Tapeta surface to Gulfstream's racing menu.

“I think at the high level, I think it's harder to find horses that are as good on each surface. I think at the lower level, I think it's easier to move them between surfaces. It gives people with lesser horses another option,” Motion said. “It also doesn't beat up on the turf course so much. Hopefully, it protects the turf course and gives another option with some of the lesser horses that don't get the option to run on the grass normally.”

Although horses have been successful going from dirt to Tapeta and vice versa, Stidham and Motion agree that turf horses seem to be more comfortable running on the all-weather surface.

“It's not a fast and true guarantee, but it's a step toward getting the same feel they get on the turf. It's a more consistent feel and footing for a horse than the dirt, where they hit the dirt and it kind of gives away,” Stidham said. “Synthetic is obviously more like turf. It's similar but not the same.”

Upperline, a multiple graded-stakes winner on turf who also won over the all-weather surfaces at Keeneland, Arlington and Woodbine; and Tizaqueena, a graded-stakes winner and multiple Grade 1 stakes-placed on turf who also won a graded stakes on Arlington's all-weather track; both showed versatility on both surfaces for Stidham during the late 2000s and early 2010s.

Training on Tapeta is essential in determining how comfortable a horse is on the new surface.

“I don't think it's good for every horse. It's just like any surface – it's a trial-and-error thing where you work a horse on it and see how they handle it and see how they come out of it,” Stidham said. “That tells you how much they like it or don't like it. It's not for every horse.”

Motion routinely trains turf horses on a synthetic surface.

“I think most turf horses handle the transition to synthetic,” Motion said. “When I breeze horses at Fair Hill, I tend to breeze them on synthetic. They're just much more comfortable on it.”

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