Thought Process © Benoit Photo
THOUGHT PROCESS POISED FOR BIG SCORE IN G1 DEL MAR OAKS
Last year Iscreamuscream parlayed a win in the G2 San Clemente Handicap with a victory in the G1 Del Mar Oaks and earned Horse of the Meet honors at Del Mar. Two years’ ago, Anisette pulled off the San Clemente / Oaks double. This year, Thought Process has a chance to repeat the feat which has only been done one other time since the turn of the century.
The top four finishers in last month’s San Clemente are back for Saturday’s 69th running of the Oaks. Thought Process was very impressive in the San Clemente opening weekend. The daughter of Collected (who won the Pacific Classic in 2017) forced the pace to the far turn, took the lead in the turn, opened up turning for home and never stopped, all under a hand ride, stopping the clock at 1:36.24 for the one mile.
“I think she’s matured,” D’Amato notes when asked how the filly has changed from last year. “That’s what you hope for with all of your 2-year-olds is that they mature. She’s always had the big size and scope to her but mentally I think she’s even stronger now.”
Then to add to her connection’s excitement, Thought Process put in a bullet work last Sunday on the Del Mar turf.
“I thought it was phenomenal,” D’Amato said of the work. “She broke behind another horse of mine, incurred traffic with a (trainer Richard) Baltas horse and split them both to be best under a hammerlock by (jockey Umberto) Rispoli. She came out of the breeze in excellent shape. I think she’s ready to go.”
The question of distance remains for Thought Process. The longest she’s ever gone in her seven-race career is one mile. The Oaks is another eighth of a mile. She drew the #10 post in the eleven-horse field so her competition will be inside of her.
Trainer Bob Baffert’s Casalu finished a well-beaten second to Thought Process in the San Clemente. The big, strapping filly has finished first or second in her last four races dating back to her runner-up finish in the G3 Jimmy Durante at Del Mar last fall.
“She ran well,” Baffert says of Casalu’s effort in the San Clemente. “She just got beat by a better horse. She’s doing well. It depends on what the pace is. That’s the whole key.”
Casalu will also be going the mile and an eighth for the first time but Baffert’s not concerned with the distance for his filly.
Right behind Casalu in the San Clemente was the late charging Will Then, who came up three-quarters of a length short of catching Casalu.
“We were happy with how she finished,” says Chelsie Raabe, assistant to trainer Jonathan Thomas. “She was coming off a little bit of a break and we just thought ‘let her give it her best shot’ and she did.”
The daughter of War of Will won the first three races of her career, including the G3 Jimmy Durante locally last November. Her win streak ended back at Churchill Downs in the G2 Edgewood on Kentucky Oaks Day when she finished fifth.
The fourth-place finisher in the San Clemente, Firenze Flavor, won the G3 Honeymoon back in May at the same mile and an eighth distance of the Oaks.
Two invaders look to crash the party. They are Take A Breath, an English-bred making her first start in the States for trainer Mark Glatt, and Lush Lips, another English-bred who broke her maiden in Florida last November. She has finish first or second in four subsequent starts. She was runner up to Nitrogen in the G2 Edgewood and then won the $200,000 Tepin Stakes next out at Churchill Downs.
“I thought she ran her best race yet,” remarked trainer Brendan Walsh on the Tepin victory. “She’d been showing at home that she’d been improving and I think she showed it in that race, too. She relaxed very well that day and hopefully we can get more of the same tomorrow.”
As for why he’s shipping her out west to run.
“It’s a Grade I,” Walsh says. ”They are few and far between these Grade I’s for 3-year-old fillies between now and the end of the year so we feel it’s a good opportunity.”
Walsh says the Breeders’ Cup for Lush Lips is the furthest thing from his mind at this point, adding he hasn’t looked beyond Saturday’s race for her.
The G1 Del Mar Oaks is Race 8 on the 10-race Saturday card. Probable post is 5:30 p.m.
Here’s the field from the rail out with the jockeys and morning line odds: Slick (Mirco Demuro, 15-1); Take A Breath (Hector I. Berrios, 12-1); Velocity (Ricky Gonzalez, 15-1); Resolve (Kent Desormeaux, 20-1); Lush Lips (Tyler Gaffalione, 3-1); Edge of Mali (Antonio Fresu, 15-1); Will Then (Juan Hernandez, 6-1); Firenze Flavor (Drayden Van Dyke, 15-1); Casalu (Kazushi Kimura, 10-1); Thought Process (Umberto Rispoli, 8/5), and Striver (Armando Ayuso, 30-1).
SPRINT CHAMP STRAIGHT NO CHASER WORKS AT DEL MAR THURSDAY
Breeders’ Cup Sprint champion Straight No Chaser put in a five-furlong work Thursday at Del Mar for trainer Dan Blacker who says he couldn’t have been more pleased.
“He worked great,” he notes. “I told my assistant 1:01 and he went 1:01. First five-eighths back I was really happy with the way he looked, the way he did it. He looks like his old self.”
But unfortunately for Del Mar fans, Blacker says they won’t make the G2 Pat O’Brien next week and will instead return to the races in the G2 Santa Anita Sprint Championship September 28.
“Del Mar is really special to me,” Blacker adds. “I really wanted to run him here but the timing of the race just didn’t work working back from the Breeders’ Cup.”
Last year Straight No Chaser used the Santa Anita Sprint as a prep for the Breeders’ Cup.
“He won that race,” Blacker recalls. “It worked out so well last year we’re going to do the same this year.”
The 6-year-old son of Speightster hasn’t raced since returning from the Middle East following his disappointing eighth-place finish in the G1 Dubai Golden Shaheen on the Dubai World Cup undercard April 5. Straight No Chaser has put in five works since the middle of July.
CARMATHON ’25 AIRS FROM DEL MAR SATURDAY ON FANDUEL
Big Rainbow is a stunning filly by Mr. Big who is now a CARMA grad training for the 2025 Thoroughbred Makeover with professional show jumper and stuntman Nathan Williams-Bonner. Nathan is from Long Beach and he’s been working with Big Rainbow in Temecula as part of a newly launched professional show jumping team. They’re sights are set on the Makeover and maybe even the Olympics.
Big Rainbow is just one of the many success stories CARMA has been sharing in the days leading up to its big annual event this Saturday. CARMAthon is an all-day fund raiser that will stream live from Del Mar by FanDuel TV. It’s designed to bring awareness to their cause of finding second careers for retired racehorses as well as raise money to fund those efforts.
Here’s another story.
Earls Rock is a recent Placement Program graduate who is now training with CANTER California, a partner of CARMA’s. Earls Rock is an Irish-bred gelding foaled in April of 2018. He earned $228,319 in 10 starts with four wins including the 2023 G3 Thunder Road at Santa Anita.
There are hundreds more of these stories to illustrate the important work CARMA does throughout the year. Over 500 retired racehorses have found their next careers with CARMA’s Placement Program.
“It’s the biggest fund raiser of the year for CARMA,” notes retired Hall of Fame turf writer Jay Privman, who is now a member of CARMA’s board of directors. “People can donate at any time but on Saturday there is going to be a whole day surrounding the promotion.”
Privman has written hundreds of stories during his illustrious career but none he’s more proud of than a children’s book he wrote for CARMA last year. It’s called, “What Horses Do After Racing: The Story of Good Carma.“ All the proceeds go to CARMA. It’s a fun read for people of all ages about four fictitious horses who, with the help of CARMA, find wonderful second careers.
“It’s full of inside jokes and homages to people involved with CARMA,” Privman admits starting with the horses’ names. “Silly Billy is for Billy Koch, (founder and manager of Little Red Feather Racing); Stylish Samantha is for Samantha Siegel; Lovely Lucinda is for Lucinda Lovett, who runs CARMA on a daily basis and finally there’s Good Carma.”
CARMA has been in the business of aftercare for racehorses since 2007 and has granted over $6.4 million to aftercare charities. That’s thousands of horses helped and countless lives touched. Many of these nonprofits do more than retrain and rehome. They teach horsemanship to kids, support people with autism, or help veterans and first responders heal.
It should be noted that most of these horses were never big time money winners but rather the weekday claimer or maiden who never could win that first race.
“Horses that aren’t going to be breeding stock,” Privman says. “That’s first and foremost of who they’re going to be. Geldings are first because once they’re done racing, they need to have a second career. There’s often times mares who, for various reasons, are not breeding worthy.
“Every six months I do a little update on horses,” Privman continues. “It’s a 500 word feature about horses you might have heard of that used to race and here is what they’re doing in their second careers. One was an overnight maiden and the other was one-for-nine. Now they’re having successful second acts as show jumpers, trail ponies, or even therapy horses for people who have experienced trauma.”
If you’d like to make a donation you can text it to CARMA at 50155 or go to carma4horses.com/CARMAthon-25.
PAIR OF HANDICAPPING SEMINARS ON TAP THIS WEEKEND
Racing fans can sit in on a pair of free handicapping seminars this weekend held on the Plaza de Mexico. Each day the seminars start at 1:00 p.m. and run for about 30 to 40 minutes.
The seminars feature guest experts with solid opinions on the afternoons’ races. On Saturday, host Frank Scatoni will feature jockey agent Matt Nakatani. Sunday will see host Dan Smith working with racetracker Johnny Bucalo.
COOLING OUT: A few firsts at Del Mar Thursday. Jockey Christobal Herrera scored his first ever win at Del Mar when he rode the 3-year-old filly Mia Mac to victory in Race 4 for trainer Marcia Stortz, who also notched her first ever win at Del Mar…Jockey Adrian Escobedo won his first race of the summer at Del Mar onboard Bag’s Gold in Race 6 giving trainer Ryan Hanson his first victory of the summer session. And trainers Isidro Tomayo with Ballyvaughn Gig in Race 5 and Paul Aguirre with Tapit Dynasty in Race 8 registered their first wins of the summer meet…Notable works for Friday: Barnes (4f, :48.00); Judge Miller (4f, :48.60); Pushiness (4f, :49.60); Richi (4f, :49.20); Speedy Wilson (4f, :49.80); Baeza (5f, 1:02.40); Gaming (5f, 1:01.40); Hope Road (6f, 1:12.60); Atitlan (7f, 1:26.80), and Nevada Beach (7f, 1:25.00). A total of 164 horses put in official works at Del Mar on Friday.