Weston | Horse Racing Free Tips

Maidens Figure to Have Big Say in Del Mar Futurity

Dr. Schivel (Violence), a blowout maiden winner last out, plus a pair of horses yet to earn their diploma make up a quality trio of major contenders in Monday’s GI Runhappy Del Mar Futurity.

Backed down to 3-2 debuting June 21 at Santa Anita, the Luis Mendez trainee rallied to be third after some trouble and was runner-up July 4 at Los Alamitos. Jumping way forward in his local bow Aug. 8, the bay blasted clear to a 5 3/4-length victory, earning by far his highest career Beyer with an 86.

Returning to take another crack at him is the runner-up from that day, Spielberg (Union Rags). Selling for a cool $1 million at Keeneland September, the chestnut was backed down to 4-5 debuting for Bob Baffert, but was no match for Dr Schivel. Breaking from the rail, he drilled five furlongs in :59 3/5 (2/74) over this track Aug. 22.

Dixie’s Two Stents (Quality Road) looks to give Doug O’Neill his third Del Mar Futurity win. Narrowly bested by Baffert’s odds-on Freedom Fighter (Violence) debuting locally Aug. 1, the $60,000 Keeneland November buy clocked his final furlong in :11.49 that day and has come back to blow out five panels in a bullet :59 flat (1/58) Aug. 30.

Weston (Hit It a Bomb), a 21-1 victor over Dr. Schivel in the aforementioned Arcadia heat, backed up that result with a game tally in the GII Best Pal S. Aug. 8. He’ll likely need a big figure boost off his career top of 67 to make it three in a row.

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Dr. Schivel Hoping To Put Freeze On Baffert’s Grip On Del Mar Futurity

Six young horses will run seven furlongs Monday in the 73rd edition of the shore oval's annual closer – the Runhappy Del Mar Futurity. The race will carry a purse of $250,000 and a Grade 1 ranking. And as it has many times before, it also likely will point out the winner for much bigger and better things to come on down the line.

The morning line favorite for the juvenile headliner will be Red Baron's Barn and Rancho Temescal's Dr. Schivel, a colt by Violence who was purchased privately by his current connections – father Jed and son Tim Cohen — in the past few weeks. The bay easily had won a straight maiden race at six furlongs at Del Mar on August 8 after running second and third in a pair of previous outings.

Following that win, the colt's then owners – and breeders – William Branch and Arnold Hill, heard an offer they couldn't refuse and ceded ownership to his current pair of owners. Dr. Schivel will race for trainer Luis Mendez once more in the Futurity, then shift to conditioner Mark Glatt's barn.

Here's the full field for the race from the rail out with riders and morning line odds: SF Racing, Starlight Racing or Madaket Stables' Spielberg (Abel Cedillo, 2-1); Brad Allshouse's Dyn O Mite (Victor Espinoza, 12-1); Drakos or Hanson's Weston (Drayden Van Dyke, 6-1); KMN Racing's Scooby (Umberto Rispoli, 12-1); Reddam Racing's Dixie's Two Stents (Mario Gutierrez, 3-1), and Dr. Schivel (8/5).

Spielberg, a $1,000,000 yearling purchase in Kentucky last September, is a son of Union Rags who has started only once, finishing second to Dr. Schivel in that one's winning heat here on August 8. He has the distinct advantage, however, of racing out of the barn of conditioner Bob Baffert who has won the Del Mar Futurity a record 14 times.

Dixie's Two Stents was a weanling purchase for $60,000 in Kentucky in November of 2018. The son of Quality Road made his racing debut at Del Mar on August 1 and closed late to just miss in a five-furlong maiden special weight contest. He's worked well at the shore oval since.

Weston enters the fray with a two-for-two record, including a tally in the Grade 2 Best Pal Stakes at Del Mar on August 8. The Hit It a Bomb gelding trains out of the barn of part owner Ryan Hanson and – in contrast to some of his Monday adversaries – was a bargain $7,000 purchase as a yearling last year in Kentucky.

Scooby is trained by Jerry Hollendorfer. Though still a maiden after two starts, he's closed well in both of those outings.

Dyn O Mite has run second in all three of his tries. The son of Goldencents is conditioned by J. Keith Desormeaux.

Monday's finale means that there will be a mandatory payout in the track's popular Pick Six bet. It will be held on races 6 through 11.

The headliner will go as the 10th event on an 11-race card. First post Monday goes at 1 p.m.

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Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: Chariot Racing World Champ Finds Success With Thoroughbreds

Trainer Ryan Hanson was excited to earn his first graded stakes win with Thoroughbreds at Del Mar recently, saddling Weston to victory in the Grade 2 Best Pal Stakes, but it was hardly the first major horse racing victory for the 39-year-old native of Idaho.

Hanson conditioned multiple graded stakes-winning Quarter Horses, and he is also a World Champion in the sport of chariot racing.

“In my office, the chariot racing photos are the ones that get the most people talking,” the trainer said. “It's the one thing I really miss about being in the northwest; I don't miss the snow or the cold, but I miss chariot racing.”

Both Hanson's father and grandfather also earned World Champion titles in chariot racing, which is conducted by hitching two horses side-by-side and competing over a quarter of a mile. Hanson won the title in 2006, just before the family moved to Southern California.

“It's a really, really huge family activity, but it's still ultra-competitive,” Hanson explained. “By the time I was doing it, we were claiming Quarter Horses from Los Alamitos, hooking them on the chariot and racing in Idaho.”

Unfortunately, it was hard to make a living during summertime Quarter Horse racing in Idaho, and chariot racing is exclusively a winter activity. Hanson's father James “Jim” Hanson moved the family racing operation to Los Alamitos in 2006, and everyone pitched in to help climb the ranks.

A jockey for his father from age 16, Ryan Hanson outgrew those boots and became his father's assistant and top exercise rider. Eventually Hanson took the horses under his own name, saddling 2013 AQHA World Champion Distance horse Honoroso, who the family had claimed for $6,250 in 2012.

Ryan Hanson in a 2006 chariot race

In 2015 Hanson went home to Idaho for the summer, racing at what turned out to be the final season in Boise. Returning to Southern California that winter, Hanson made a change. He took a job galloping Thoroughbreds for trainer Robertino Diodoro, and worked his way up to assistant.

“It's really hard to make a living in Idaho,” Hanson explained.

Two years later, Diodoro left California, and Hanson felt he didn't really have a choice but to try to make a go of it on his own. He hung out his shingle over a single horse, True Ranger, a $12,500 claimer.

That chestnut gelding may not have won a race for Hanson, but he did hit the board in most of his starts at Santa Anita and Del Mar. Hanson would win just one race in 2017, with a horse he co-owned with his father named Poshsky, but he started to make his presence felt on the Southern California circuit.

In 2018 Hanson began to train for outside clients, first in partnerships between his father and Robin Dunn. Dunn recommended Hanson to an owner named Chris Drakos, who had actually lived 15 minutes away from Hanson in Idaho, but the two had never met face to face.

Drakos took a chance and sent Hanson four horses, and the two are now co-owners of Grade 2 winner Weston.

Weston and Drayden Van Dyke after the Best Pal

“It was nice of Robin and dad to partner with me, but I wasn't able to make it on that alone,” Hanson explained. “I'm so appreciative of Drakos, because not too many people want to give a young guy a chance, and he did.”

Hanson started winning a few more races, and today he conditions a 25-horse string at Del Mar alongside his wife, Michelle Yu. Yu works afternoons as an on-air handicapper at Santa Anita, and the couple have two children under the age of four.

“They're my pride and joy,” Hanson said. “They get to come with us to the ranch, and before COVID, they'd come to the track in the afternoons as well.”

Every morning, seven days a week, Hanson rides at least 10 horses over the track before heading out to a ranch in Pico Rivera, where he, Yu, and a couple exercise riders spend another two hours or so starting babies and riding out the young horses in the river bottoms.

“Riding them yourself, I just thing you get a better feeling of the horses, you can see how they're doing,” Hanson said. “When I'm getting on them, I can make split-second decisions. When I'm out there we take them two at a time, so if I see the horse next to me doing something and think he needs to do something different, we can make that decision on the track right then.

“I do think Quarter Horses are a bit smarter than Thoroughbreds, because the Thoroughbreds you have to get out on the track every day. We try to do something different with them every day, gallop in a different way, or jog them, just something different to keep them thinking differently.”

Weston, a $7,000 purchase at the Keeneland September yearling sale, was one of those started through Hanson's program at the ranch.

“Honestly, he was miserable to break and miserable to ride,” Hanson said. “We brought him in (to the track on) April 1, and I remember thinking I couldn't wait to get him into the track and geld him. It didn't really help.”

Hanson rode the 2-year-old son of Hit It A Bomb for his first several workouts but didn't think too much of the gelding, so he decided to turn the reins over to exercise rider Emily Ellingwood. Now Ellingwood gallops Weston every day, and the gelding seems pleased with the new arrangement.

He won his debut on June 21 at Santa Anita by 1 1/4 lengths, then came back on Aug. 8 to win the G2 Best Pal by a neck.

“I was happy to win it for Ryan Hanson,” jockey Drayden Van Dyke told Del Mar publicity after the race. “He's such a kind man and a good horse trainer. And this horse showed some class, too. Ryan told me he never got to paddock him (prior to the race), but he was just standing in there like an old pro. I knew I got there in the end and I'm real glad I did.”

Hanson was thrilled, of course, but the pragmatic trainer not sure what the next step will be with Weston.

“I'm happy we got the race, but I don't know how good of a horse he is,” Hanson said honestly. “We caught the right field, and we were very ready. I'm not happy that we don't have another place to go with him besides the Del Mar Futurity, but if he continues to do well, I want to take advantage of it.”

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Bloodlines Presented By California Thoroughbred Breeders Association: Texas Red, Hit It A Bomb Land Early Blows In Freshman Sire Race

With races for 2-year-olds that prohibit Lasix, it was no surprise that the juvenile graded stakes winners at Del Mar on Aug. 8 both raced without the controversial medication. It was, however, a surprise that the winners of the Grade 2 Best Pal and the G2 Sorrento were both by freshmen sires.

The Sorrento's public betting choice at 0.90-to-1 was My Girl Red (by Texas Red), and after leading all the way, the handsome bay filly duly delivered by 4 3/4 lengths from second-choice Get On the Bus (Uncle Mo), who had five lengths on Exchange Vows (Tapiture), the longest price on the odds board.

Bred in Kentucky and racing for breeder Erich Brehm, My Girl Red is out of the stakes-placed Morakami (Fusaichi Pegasus), and the Sorrento winner is one of four stakes horses out of that mare. Brehm, who was a co-owner of Texas Red, purchased Morakami in foal to Street Boss (Street Cry) for $21,000 at the 2017 Keeneland January sale.

A $225,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase, Morakami would have been counted a disappointing broodmare at the time of sale, as none of the mare's racers had earned black type at the time. Two of the mare's foals already in training subsequently became stakes-placed, and the foal she was carrying at the sale is now known as Gold Street, the winner of the 2019 Sugar Bowl Stakes at the Fair Grounds and the 2020 Smarty Jones at Oaklawn Park.

Now unbeaten in two starts, My Girl Red is the first graded winner for either of her parents. Morakami has a yearling filly by Texas Red and a weanling filly of 2020 by leading sire Kitten's Joy (El Prado). The mare was bred to Into Mischief for 2021.

Much like his precocious daughter, Texas Red (Afleet Alex) was a talented 2-year-old, winning the G1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile in the absence of champion American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile) and becoming one of the early favorites for the next season's classics. The tall bay was sidelined in February 2015 with a hoof abscess, came back to win the G2 Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga, then was sidelined once again with bone bruising.

In 2017, Texas Red went to stud in Kentucky at Pope McLean's Crestwood Farm. Pope McLean Jr. said that former Crestwood associate “Phil Hager had a relationship with Brehm, and we partnered with him and his group. Erich leads that ownership group, and most of them stayed in on the horse” as a stallion prospect.

“Erich Brehm has put so much into the horse that this [victory at Del Mar] meant a lot to them,” said Marc McLean. “Morakami was a nice mare already, but Erich bought some other mares for the horse. That makes a difference in the opportunities that a young stallion has.”

With a first crop of “only” 49 foals, Texas Red had a very respectable number of foals for an earlier time, but in today's stallion environment with popular stallions having superbooks of 200 mares or more, the son of Afleet Alex is overachieving to have a graded stakes winner already.

In addition, another daughter of Texas Red, Somuchsugar, finished second in the restricted Miss Ohio Stakes on Aug. 8 to the Constitution filly Alexandria.

Like Texas Red, Hit It a Bomb (War Front) was a Breeders' Cup winner as an unbeaten juvenile, winning the 2015 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf by a neck from Airoforce (Colonel John). Laid off until August of his 3-year-old season, Hit It a Bomb returned with thirds in the G2 Solonaway Stakes and G3 Desmond Stakes and ended his career unplaced in the G1 Breeders' Cup Mile.

Sold to stand at Spendthrift Farm, Hit It a Bomb got a tepid reception from dirt-oriented breeders and has only 38 foals from his first crop. Some of them looked the part of quality racers at last year's sales of yearlings, as Makai brought $140,000 at the Keeneland September sale from Jordan Blair Racing, and Miss Costa Rica brought $95,000 at the same auction. Too many of the yearlings by Hit It a Bomb, however, did not receive the seal of approval from American trainers and pinhookers, with a sales median price of $12,000 from 23 sold.

One of those below the median price was Weston, who sold to Chris Drakos for $7,000 at the Keeneland September sale. Now the winner of the Best Pal Stakes, the bay has improved a lot, and he may not be the only one. Miss Costa Rica returned as a 2-year-old in training at the OBS March sale and sold for $200,000 in this year's strongly depressed market. She and a couple other well-regarded members of the first crop by Hit It a Bomb are reported to be training well and should make starts soon.

A winner on debut, Weston won the Best Pal after laying up with the pace the whole trip and was ahead by a neck at the wire, defeating Girther (Brody's Cause).

Weston is out of the stakes-placed Elke (Dixie Union), and the Hit It a Bomb gelding is the mare's first stakes winner. Elke has also produced the stakes-placed Miss Segovia (Paddy O'Prado) and two other winners of more than $100,000.

As the progeny of a high-class racer who showed his form on turf, gamblers will want to pay special attention to the stock by Hit It a Bomb when they get a chance to race on turf.

Both My Girl Red and Weston were the first winners by their sires, and now they have become the first stakes winners and graded stakes winners for those young stallions trying to secure a future in the breeding world of Kentucky. To secure a position in the stallion hierarchy for 2021, Hit It a Bomb and Texas Red needed to show success early, and they have done well to sire graded winners from relatively small crops very early in their first inning at stud.

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