Whiskey Decision © Benoit Photo
It’s tourist season in Southern California when people come from all parts of the world to enjoy San Diego’s sites and attractions. And it’s not only humans making the trip. Seven fillies and mares will go a mile and a sixteenth on the Jimmy Durante turf course in Saturday’s 74th running of Yellow Ribbon Stakes. Of the seven, five will be coming to Del Mar from locales outside of California.
Posts one through three of the Yellow Ribbon will be filled with out-of-towners. Princess Attitude from the Victoria Oliver barn in Kentucky; Sweet Rebecca from the Michael Maker stable, and Vincey Girl from Jose D’Angelo’s Florida string. Then there’s trainer Graham Motion’s Warming, who visited Del Mar last fall. She’s back for the Yellow Ribbon as is Whiskey Decision, who was moved from the Chad Brown barn on the east coast into Michael McCarthy’s care on the west coast.
“She came to our barn five weeks ago,” McCarthy notes. “They (Alpha Delta Stables) wanted to capitalize on her pedigree and pad her resume with a graded stake out here.”
The daughter of Into Mischief has proven competitive in graded stakes company, missing by a nose in the G2 Hillsborough at Tampa Bay Downs in March and finishing second to Gimme a Nother in the G3 Eatontown at Monmouth Park in June. Gimme a Nother came back and won the G2 Beverly D. at Colonial Downs last weekend.
“I thought it was a solid race,” McCarthy says of Whiskey Decision’s outing on the Jersey Shore. “She’s come back and is training well. She’s got a touch of class about her.”
One horse who might have a slight edge over the other shippers in terms of familiarity with Del Mar is Warming, who raced at the seaside oval last year. She ran in the G3 Bayakoa, finishing seventh in the eight-horse field. But it was her first time on dirt.
“She was here and there really wasn’t a race for her on the grass,” explains Alice Clapham, assistant trainer to Graham Motion. “She had breezed a couple of times on the dirt and they always wanted to give her one try on the dirt just to see so we did. We learned she’s not a dirt horse.”
In the races since the dirt try (two on the synthetic, two on the turf) Warming finished in of the money in all four.
The daughter of Global Campaign is owned by Eclipse Thoroughbreds. She won the G3 Gallorette in May on the Preakness Stakes undercard at Laurel Park.
“She’s a tough filly who loves to run,” Clapham states. “She tries really hard. Juan (Hernandez) has ridden her before and won on her before so I think this will be a great spot.”
She’ll be running at her fifth different racetrack in her last five races and Clapham says she handled the shipping like a pro.
Princess Attitude may have the more intriguing pedigree. The 4-year-old filly is by Frankel, the Euro star who was undefeated throughout his 14-race career. Ten of those victories were Grade I’s. Princess Attitude has yet to win a stakes race but she ran second in the $100,000 Indiana General Assembly at Horseshoe Indiana last time out.
Sweet Rebecca is by American Pharoah and has won six of her 10 career starts, including last out in the $125,000 Wasted Tears at Lone Star Park. She also won the $150,000 Sand Springs at Gulfstream Park in March.
Vincey Girl comes into Del Mar from South Florida where she won the $75,000 Powder Break at Gulfstream Park in her last race. Her trainer is no stranger to Del Mar sweeping back-to-back Breeders’ Cup races here last fall. D’Angelo won with Shisospicy in the Turf Sprint and Bentornato in the Sprint. He has a string of horses stabled at Del Mar this summer.
The local contingent consists of Princess Moche, a Peruvian-bred who ran two weeks ago in the $100,000 Daisycutter at Del Mar finishing fourth and Take A Breath, an English-bred who made her U.S. debut at Del Mar last year in the G1 Del Mar Oaks. She was a hard-charging fourth that day and has since comeback to win back-to-back Grade 3 races, the Santa Ana in March and the Royal Heroine in April, both at Santa Anita. Her most recent run was a third in the G1 Gamely on Memorial Day.
The Yellow Ribbon is Race 8 on Saturday’s 10-race card. Probable post time is 5:30 p.m.
Here’s the field from the rail with the jockeys and the morning line odds: Princess Attitude (Kazushi Kimura, 12-1); Sweet Rebecca (Antonio Fresu, 7/2); Vincey Girl (Joel Rosario, 12-1); Princess Moche (Joe Bravo, 6-1); Take A Breath (Emisael Jaramillo, 3-1); Warming (Juan Hernandez, 6-1); Innovative (SCRATCHED), and Whiskey Decision (Umberto Rispoli, 2-1).