Doug O'Neill © Benoit Photo
Trainer Doug O’Neill and his staff plan to be very busy between 3:30 and 4 o’clock Sunday afternoon. That’s when he will be saddling his horses entered in the $100,000 Bob Hope Stakes at Del Mar. The leading trainer this past summer at Del Mar has not just one horse to get ready for the race. Not even two or three. He has a total of five horses entered in the seven-furlong contest for 2-year-olds on the main track.
Saddling five horses can be a daunting task without some help. Fortunately for O’Neill he has one of the best assistant trainers in the business in Leondro Mora.
O’Neill is very high on Fractious, a son of Volatile who made his debut at Del Mar this summer and finished second. He returned a month later and broke his maiden by three and a quarter lengths at Santa Anita.
“Joel Rosario is a world class rider and even he was like ‘wow’ after the race,” O’Neill says. “It was a very wowing performance and he’s come out of it in great shape. From the winners circle that day on we’ve been talking about the Bob Hope with him. We’re excited.”
The most experienced of O’Neill’s quintet is Dang Son, a son of Good Magic who has four career starts, three at Del Mar last summer. He broke his maiden in his second start at a mile on the turf then returned to the dirt and ran third in the G1 Del Mar Futurity behind eventual Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner Hughes.
Dang Son stretched out in his next race and ran last in the G1 American Pharoah.
“He’s got stakes quality in him,” O’Neill insists. “I just think he needs some time and some racing. He might be a tad behind Fractious right now but I think on any given day he can jump up and compete with these guys.”
O’Neill’s other entries in the Bob Hope are Sip It, a last out maiden winner on the turf at Santa Anita; Dats Improbable, who last raced on the East Coast at Laurel Park in the James Lewis Stakes. That was after he broke his maiden at Timonium by 10 ¼ lengths in September; and High Pronto, who broke his maiden at Del Mar in August, ran last in the Del Mar Futurity a month later then tried the turf last out and ran fourth in the $100,000 Speakeasy at Santa Anita.
It’s no secret that Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert has dominated the 2-year-old division in Southern California for years. He has won this race 11 times, three when it was run at Hollywood Park and was known as the Hollywood Prevue Stakes and eight times since it moved to Del Mar in 2014 and became known as the Bob Hope.
This year Baffert brings two horses to the race. Domus broke his maiden first time out and then, like Dang Son, he took a crack at the two Grade I’s, running fourth in the Del Mar Futurity and fourth again on the stretch out in the mile and a sixteenth American Pharoah.
“We’ve always been high on the horse,” Baffert notes. “In the Futurity he just got rank early and gave up. I think he should run well. Maybe this is a stepping stone to the Los Alamitos Futurity, which would be a stepping stone to whatever’s next. We’re just getting some races into him.”
Baffert will also run Kivo, a son of Omaha Beach who broke his maiden last time out.
“I was very impressed with his race,” Baffert states. “He didn’t run real fast but he’s a nice horse. He’s got a great post (#7) so he should run well.”
The Bob Hope, named after the famous entertainer whose career spanned nearly 80 years on radio, television, movies and USO shows he did for the troops in war zones, is Race 8 on the nine-race Sunday program. Probable post time is 4 p.m.
Here’s the field from the rail with the jockeys and the morning line odds: Sip It (Kazushi Kimura, 5-1); Fractious (Joel Rosario, 6-1); Dats Improbable (Umberto Rispoli, 8-1); Domus (Juan Hernandez, 8/5); Dang Son (Kyle Frey, 8-1); High Pronto (Edwin Maldonado, 12-1), and Kivo (Emisael Jaramillo, 3-1).