Jonathan Thomas © Benoit Photo
Horses have been arriving on the backside of Del Mar this week in advance of this year’s Bing Crosby Season. One of the early arrivals is the string of horses from the Jonathan Thomas stable. The 46-year-old conditioner has enjoyed quite a bit of success during Del Mar’s fall meet the past couple of years. This year he brings a full string of horses to the seaside oval.
“The last two years a lot of it was about timing,” Thomas explains. “Having a horse that’s in a good form cycle at the right time. Fortunately, the last two years that’s been the case. Hopefully we can replicate a little bit of that. We’ve got some up and comers and some horses coming off breaks that need to step up.”
Thomas’ exceptional run at Del Mar started in 2024, the first year he stabled horses fulltime at the seaside oval. First, he won the G3 Red Carpet with Mrs. Astor on Thanksgiving Day. The next day he won the G2 Hollywood Turf Cup with Truly Quality and then the next day he was back in the winner’s circle with Will Then, who romped home to win the G3 Jimmy Durante.
“I wouldn’t say we gear up for Del Mar,” Thomas notes. “It just seems to fit the natural flow of our barn. We operate fairly organically in the sense that when they’re ready and they’re doing well, we run. Because we take a little more time with our 2-year-olds than most, they get to where they need to be by this time of year.”
Trainers pull off encores all the time, but Thomas’ return to Del Mar in the fall of 2025 was quite remarkable. He came back with the same horses in the same races and won again; Mrs. Astor in the Red Carpet and Truly Quality in the Turf Cup. That’s why his ‘no show’ at the summer meet at Del Mar this year was bewildering for many though it comes with a reasonable explanation.
“It was just numeric,” Thomas says of his absence. “The number of horses we had. This 25 that we have now is our entire string. It’s everything I’ve got. It’s just hard splitting up a smaller size barn.”
Thomas’ solution to the problem. Just bring the whole bunch of them out to Del Mar. All 25. No splitting up necessary. That’s what he’s done this fall.
Thomas did run one horse at Del Mar during the summer meet…and he won. Observed captured the G3 Juvenile Turf Stakes in September.
“We hope to get Observed back for the Cecil B. DeMille (closing day, November 29 at Del Mar),” Thomas states. “We also have Ambaya who I thought ran well the other day in the Goldikova (at Santa Anita) with a troubled trip and we’ll try to get her to the Matriarch (also closing day at Del Mar). So, some returning horses need to step up, have a really good three or four weeks out here and hopefully bring their ‘A’ game when it counts.”
Thomas is hoping to put a nice wrap on a year that is on pace to equal his past two years in which earnings topped $2 million.
“I think we’ve made the most of what we’ve had,” Thomas says. “We had a really good summer. We won some big races on the dirt, which was nice. I’m proud of our team, proud of our horses and our clients. I think we’ve had a really nice year.”
The dirt race he’s referring to was the G3 West Virginia Derby at Mountaineer. He won with his Quality Road colt Zihnal.
While Mrs. Astor is retired from racing, Truly Quality is still active. He recently won the $75,000 Remington Green at Remington Park. Thomas says they’d like to get him back to the Hollywood Turf Cup on Friday, November 27 at Del Mar.
“We love being out here,” Thomas says of Del Mar. “We always want to bring the best of what we have and put our best foot forward. Hopefully we can get lucky a little bit again.”