Greyvitos © Benoit Photo
Longshot Greyvitos, winless in two starts in his brief career, broke his maiden in style Saturday with a wire-to-wire surprise under Hall of Fame jockey Victor Espinoza in the featured $100,000 Bob Hope Stakes for two-year-olds.
Equipped with blinkers for the first time by trainer Adam Kitchingman, Greyvitos assumed command leaving the gate, set a swift pace and then held on determinedly to withstand the challenge of 13-10 favored Mourinho and win by one and one-half lengths in the stakes record time of 1:22 20 for the seven furlongs.
Mourinho, who was piloted by Drayden Van Dyke, was seven and three-quarter lengths in front of third-place Beautiful Shot, with Italiano fourth in the field of six youngsters. Run Away, second choice at 9-5, was a disappointing fifth.
Greyvitos, a son of Malibu Moon owned by the Triple B Farms of Michele Boghossian of North Hollywood, Ca., went postward an overlooked 19-1 and returned $41.80, $9.20 and $3.40. First money was $60,000. Mourinho paid $3.60 and $2.60, while Beautiful Shot returned $2.60 to show.
There were no perfect tickets in Saturday’s Pick Six. Thus, Sunday’s program will feature a carryover of $66,799, with the single ticket Jackpot at $14,309. Post time for the first of nine races will be 12:30 p.m.
VICTOR ESPINOZA (Greyvitos, winner ) - I knew there was a lot of speed in the race but if I could get the jump on them then I would just go on. The post number one I had to do something. The fractions were pretty quick but when the horse is doing it easy it doesn’t matter how fast you go.
DRAYDEN VAN DYKE(Mourinho, second) – We had a great trip, sat right behind the winner, got out and had a chance to run him down but couldn’t.
KENT DESORMEAUX (Beautiful Shot, third ) – I left him too much to do. The winner was up there running too easy. I could see his ears were up and he was just galloping. My horse fought hard to finish where we did, but the winner was full of run today.
ADAM KITCHINGMAN (Greyvitos) – I wasn’t surprised to see him on the lead. In his last race, he was climbing with the dirt hitting him and so I was okay with him on the lead today. Those were solid fractions and the final time was good. With his pedigree, we figured him for a grass horse and definitely for two turns because he’s bred top and bottom for that. And we might run him again on the grass sometime in the future. But he trained so well on the dirt that we wanted to try him on it. I also figured he’d like the seven furlongs. His next race will be the Futurity at Los Alamitos.
FRACTIONS: :22.66 :45.20 1:09.56 1:22.20 (New stakes record)
The stakes win was the first of the fall meeting for Victor Espinoza and 95th over all at Del Mar, placing him in a tie for fourth all-time with Alex Solis and Eddie Delahoussaye. It was his second victory in the Bob Hope Stakes, having won in 2014 aboard No Problem.
For trainer Adam Kitchingman, it was his third Del Mar stakes victory.