Hughes © Benoit Photo
It’s time to begin separating the men from the boys at Del Mar. After three weeks of preliminaries consisting of 2-year-old maiden races and a couple of Cal-bred stakes races, the first of five Graded stakes for juveniles takes place Saturday. The G3 Best Pal is a 6-furlong test that acts as the local prep for the G1 Del Mar Futurity next month.
Trainer Bob Baffert is bringing back Hughes, an Into Mischief colt who broke his maiden first out at Los Alamitos by six lengths.
“He hasn’t run in a while but he’s doing well,” Baffert says. “His first race was pretty impressive and his mind’s been good. The second out is always the most important. This time he’s running with better horses and it’s a pretty competitive race. There are three really good colts in there.”
Those three would be his horse, Kennyten and He Is No Lie, horses who all broke their maidens at first asking by open lengths.
Kennyten is a son of Drain the Clock, who won first time out by 7 ½ lengths at Santa Anita in June. He’s out of the Vladimir Cerin barn.
“Michael McCarthy bought him for Holly and David Wilson,” Cerin explains. “He had several of his own so he gave me this one. One race doesn’t make a career but so far so good.”
He Is No Lie is trained by Del Mar’s current leading trainer Doug O’Neill. After coasting to an eight-length victory in his debut, O’Neill sent the son of Early Voting back to Churchill Downs and ran him in the $200,000 Bashford Manor where he got run down on the wire and lost by a head.
“That was scary fast,” notes Leandro Mora, O’Neill’s assistant. “We didn’t expect that so after that race we got pretty excited. He’s training really well and has adapted to Del Mar.”
O’Neill also brings Phone Booth to the Best Pal. The son of Pavel broke his maiden at first asking, winning on opening weekend at Del Mar.
The other two runners in the Best Pal are still maidens. Icanthelpmyself and You Want Some are first-time starters.
“We wanted to run in a maiden race,” trainer Peter Miller states of his horse You Want Some. “But the race didn’t go so it forced us into this spot. We either sit him in the barn or run him in a stake and I don’t want to wait.”
The 56th running of the Best Pal, which used to be called the Balboa Stakes until Del Mar changed the name in 1996 to commemorate the Hall of Famer and three-time California Horse of the Year. It’s Race 3 on Saturday’s card. Probable post time is 3 p.m.
Here’s the field from the rail with the jockeys and morning line odds: Phone Booth (Umberto Rispoli, 12-1); He Is No Lie (Emisael Jaramillo, 2-1); Hughes (Juan Hernandez, 3-1); Icanthelpmyself (Armando Ayuso, 8-1); You Want Some (Kazushi Kimura, 8-1), and Kennyten (Ricky Gonzalez, 9/5).