Hang the Moon © Benoit Photo
Del Mar will offer another stakes doubleheader on its sun-splashed grounds Saturday, one on its very green Jimmy Durante Turf Course, while the other is on its one-mile dirt oval.
The grass feature is the 73rd edition of the Yellow Ribbon Handicap, a mile and one-sixteenth spin for fillies and mares (aged 3 and up) that carries a Grade II ranking and a $200,000 purse.
The second event is the 55th running of the Best Pal Stakes, which is contested over six furlongs for 2-year-olds and is a Grade III with a $150,000 purse.
The Yellow Ribbon, which was known as the Palomar from 1945 to 2011, has drawn a field of eight, six of them mares and two fillies with nary a 3-year-old in sight. Likely favorite in the fray is CJ Thoroughbreds’ Hang the Moon, a multiple stakes winner who’ll have regular rider Kazushi Kimura in the tack. The bay 5-year-old by Uncle Mo has won five races and more than $425,000 and has drawn the role of morning line race favorite at 3-1. She comes out of the barn of solid turf trainer Phil D’Amato.
Also of note in the test is Alpha Delta Stables’ Liguria, also a multiple stakes winner who has top turf rider Umberto Rispoli named on board. The daughter of War Front, also a 5-year-old bay, hails from the shedrow of Mike McCarthy and can boast of four wins and more than $400,000 in earnings.
Yet another runner of note is Wathnan Racing’s Heredia, who’ll be shipping in from the east by direction of top trainer H. Graham Motion. She, too, is a 5-year-old bay mare and also a daughter of Uncle Mo and will have the saddle services of Del Mar’s top rider in Juan Hernandez.
The Yellow Ribbon goes as Race 9 on a 10-race card.
The Best Pal, which previously was known as the Balboa Stakes from its inception in 1967 through to 1995, has lured only five runners and one of them – St Petersburg – was supplemented to the dash for $1,500.
St Petersburg races out of the barn of top trainer Bob Baffert, who also has another horse in the lineup in Pegram, Watson and Weitman’s Desert Gate. The Omaha Beach colt, a $260,000 purchase at a 2-year-old in training sale earlier this year in Florida, was a sharp winner of his lone start at Santa Anita in June and has been training forwardly since. He’s been hung a stout 3/5 favorite in the short field and Hernandez has the call.
The Best Pal will be Race 4 on the program.
First post Saturday will be at 2 p.m.