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Del Mar’s Bing Crosby Season Ends With Safe Racing, Bigger Fields, Increased Wagering

The Del Mar Thoroughbred Club continued its industry-leading safety record and its increased wagering trends as its Bing Crosby Season concluded on Sunday, November 29. The five-week fall meet provided total handle of $195.9 million, an increase of 33% over last season

“A terrific meet on all levels,” said Del Mar's CEO, Joe Harper. “First and foremost, the horses and people who care for them were safe. Wagering, which fuels the industry's economic engine, exceeded expectations and the racing product was once again topnotch.”

Average field size was 8.1 runners per race, a healthy increase of 9.5% from 2019's number of 7.4. A total of 131 races were run, compared to 114 last year. Grass racing, including the seven graded stakes that make up the “fall turf festival,” once again highlighted the Bing Crosby Season. In total, races on the grass produced an impressive average filed size of 8.7.

“Outstanding support from our horsemen and horsewomen,” said executive vice president of racing, Tom Robbins. “The racing was extremely competitive and, judging by our handle numbers, horseplayers responded. We raised purse levels prior to the meet and it's gratifying to see that pay dividends.”

Racing during the seventh Bing Crosby Season was first-rate and no more so than the track's “turf festival” emphasis on its closing Thanksgiving weekend when seven graded stakes were run on the green and drew 20 runners from the east to participate. Champion trainer Chad Brown was especially successful with his horses, winning four of the stakes including the track's two Grade I races – the Hollywood Derby with Domestic Spending and the Matriarch Stakes with Viadera.

The meet's riding and training champions looked familiar: they were the same pair that led the session last year. Jockey Abel Cedillo easily outdistanced his rivals with 19 wins during the 15-day meet. Conditioner Richard Baltas sent out 11 winners after having won last year's crown with the same 11 firsts.

Juddmonte Farms was the leading owner for money won at the session with $256,000, while owners Perry and Ramona Bass won the most races – five all told.

“To follow up our highly successful summer meet with these excellent fall season results, on both the safety and business side, is a credit to the Del Mar team and the partnership we have with industry stakeholders,” said DMTC president and COO, Josh Rubinstein. “It has obviously been a very unusual year and we have dearly missed our fans. But we have hopes that 2021 will bring us all back toward normal and let racing shine again in its usual fashion at Del Mar.”

Del Mar now will look forward to hosting the Breeders' Cup on November 5 and 6, 2021. It will be the 38th running of the championship celebration that features 14 races worth $31 million. The seaside track previously hosted a record-breaking edition of the event in 2017.

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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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Vertical Threat Invades From California To Win Steel Valley Sprint At Mahoning Valley

Breaking a step slowly from the rail post under Heriberto Figueroa, MyRaceHorse.com and Slam Dunk Racing's Vertical Threat quickly assumed command and was never seriously threatened en route to a 7 1/2-length victory in Monday's $200,000 Steel Valley Sprint at Mahoning Valley Race Course in Youngstown, Ohio.

Sent off as the even-money favorite, the Richard Baltas-trained colt by Tapiture covered six furlongs on a muddy track in 1:10.07 in the race restricted to 3-year-olds. Williston Way edged Flatter Me Please for second after the two raced as a team down the stretch, with Night Time finishing 6 1/2 lengths further back in fourth in the field of 12. Shashashakemeup and Golden Candy were scratched.

Vertical Threat paid $4.20 to win as the even-money favorite. He earned $112,800 for the victory.

While he was coming off a sixth-place finish after setting quick fractions for the opening six furlongs in the Grade 2 Pat Day Mile at Churchill Downs last time out on the Sept. 5 Kentucky Derby day card, Vertical Threat prepared for the Steel Valley Sprint in Southern California at the San Luis Rey training center. His first three races were in California, including a victory in the restricted Smiling Tiger Stakes at Del Mar in late July.

Southern California-based Figueroa – now a perfect three-for-three on the colt – guided Vertical Threat off the rail shortly after assuming command and remained well off the fence through fractions of :22.89, :45.59 and :57.63.

The victory was the third in five starts for Vertical Threat, produced from the Omega Code mare Viola Blew By and bred in Kentucky by Albert Davis and Teresa Davis. MyRaceHorse.com paid $100,000 for Vertical Threat at the 2019 OBS April Sale of 2-year-olds in training.

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Del Mar’s Red Carpet Stakes Has Eastern Flavor; TVG’s Hoover Savors 2019 Victory By $8,000 Claim

The field of 10 for the Thanksgiving Day featured Red Carpet Stakes includes four horses that last raced in New York or Kentucky on assignment from nationally-renowned trainers. Three of them will have elite Eastern-based jockeys that venture west only when the stakes are most plentiful and highest – as they will be through the four final days of the Bing Crosby Season.

So the Grade 3, $100,000 Red Carpet figures to be a tasty hors d'oeuvre for the feast that will follow—six graded stakes on grass in three days in what amounts to a “Turf Festival” – to the November 29 close of the meeting.

Three notable equine travelers for the 1 3/8-mile Red Carpet marathon for fillies and mares are Orglandes for one of the nation's leading trainers, Chad Brown, Woodfin for Victoria Oliver and Blame Debbie for H. Graham Motion. And Peter Miller has had California Kook, runner-up in the G1 Del Mar Oaks last summer, in training at San Luis Rey Downs for a month since returning from a fifth-place finish in the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup on October 10 at Keeneland.

Irad Ortiz, Jr., No. 1 in North America for purse earnings with nearly $20 million, will ride Orglandes, a 4-year-old import from France making her third U.S. start and coming in off a win at Belmont Park on October 9. Joel Rosario, No. 2 in winnings with nearly $17 million, has the call on California Kook. Manny Franco, No. 10 with more than $11.4 million will be aboard Blame Debbie after their initial collaboration resulted in victory in the G3 Dowager at Keeneland last month.

The field from the rail with jockeys in parenthesis: California Kook (Rosario); Never Be Enough (Tiago Pereira); Colonial Creed (Flavien Prat); Orglandes (Ortiz, Jr.); Going to Vegas (Mario Gutierrez); Woodfin (Jose Valdivia, Jr.); Aunt Lubie (Victor Espinoza); Blame Debbie (Franco); Hollywood Girl (Mike Smith), and Quick (Umberto Rispoli).

When TVG commentator Kurt Hoover saw the entries come out for the Red Carpet, he took special interest in looking over the field. Partly out of professional obligation, of course, but also for sentimental reasons.

“It's a race that doesn't mean a hell of a lot to a lot of people, but it does to me,” Hoover said by phone from the Los Angeles area.

Hoover, his friend from high school days Brian Ferguson and Jeff Lambert of Del Mar, a longtime client of trainer Bob Hess, Jr., comprised the ownership group of Zuzanna, an $8,000 claim of theirs that they watched win the 2019 Red Carpet at odds of 23-1.

“I remember watching her cross under the finish line and I remember being in the winner's circle, but I don't remember going down to the winner's circle,” said Hoover. It was the first stakes win as an owner for Hoover, who said he has had pieces of four or five horses with only Zuzanna succeeding at the stakes level.

“I suggested to Bob that we enter because I thought maybe we could hit the board,” Hoover recalled. “If it hadn't been a mile and three-eighths we wouldn't have entered. We were planning on going to the Claiming Crown (event) in Florida with her.”

The traditional Thanksgiving Day feature of the Bing Crosby Season was moved to Saturday in 2019 after rains early in the week compromised the Jimmy Durante Turf Course. That resulted in Paco Lopez, arriving from the east, being able to ride Zuzanna skillfully to a 1 ½-length victory.

After more than 30 career starts, Zuzanna has recently been retired and will be sold as a broodmare in January.

For the first time in 30 years, Hoover has a Thanksgiving Day off from work. But he said he'll be watching the Red Carpet with professional and sentimental interest.

“I like John Sadler's horse Quick,” Hoover said when asked for a 2020 selection. “Her last outing was a really good effort and I think she's ready to run big. Besides Quick, I think Graham Motion's horse coming in from Kentucky, Blame Debbie, will be very tough.”

In Thursday's edition, trainer Richard Baltas has the duo of Going to Vegas and Colonial Creed. Going to Vegas comes in off a runner-up effort, beaten only a neck by Warren's Showtime, in the G3 Autumn Miss at Santa Anita. Colonial Creed was second in the Katherine Crosby Stakes on the opening day of this meeting.

“Going To Vegas ran really good last time with the blinkers off,” Baltas noted. “It's a little far for her, but if she can get the distance, who knows? Obviously she's in a little tough because she's a 3-year-old running against older, but we're going to see because she's training really well.

“Colonial Creed has never been this far either, but she's coming off the pace now more and more, so maybe she will like the distance. I think they've both got a good chance.”

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