Fierceness © Benoit Photo
FIERCENESS A LATE NOMINEE FOR $1M PACIFIC CLASSIC
Nominations for the 34th running of the $1 million Pacific Classic close at midnight tonight and they’ve been trickling into the Del Mar racing office all week. One in particular caught the eye of the racing officials and will certainly enhance the race should the connections follow through.
The Todd Pletcher stable has nominated the 2024 Travers winner Fierceness for Del Mar’s marquee race coming up next weekend on August 30. The son of City of Light is partly owned by Repole Stable, which also owns Mindframe the G1 Stephen Foster winner. The intention has been all along to keep the two horses separate until the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar in November.
Mindframe is heading to the G1 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Saratoga on August 31. Bringing Fierceness out West and racing him in the Pacific Classic would get a race into him and give him time to acclimate to the surroundings. The Pacific Classic is also a ‘Win & You’re In’ race for the Breeders’ Cup Classic, further sweetening the deal.
Pletcher worked Fierceness last Saturday at Saratoga. He went four furlongs in :47.66 (3/135).
Fierceness burst on the scene two years ago when he won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita. He returned the following year and won the G1 Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park, but threw in a clunker in the Kentucky Derby, finishing 15th. Undeterred, Pletcher ran Fierceness in the G2 Jim Dandy at Saratoga and won followed by his victory in the Travers.
Fierceness would run second to Sierra Leone in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar, then returned this year to win the G2 Alysheba at Churchill Downs on Oaks Day. He ran second to Raging Torrent in the G1 Met Mile in June and faded to fourth last out in the G1 Whitney earlier this month.
Keep in mind this is only a nomination and that big-time trainers like Pletcher and Bob Baffert make nominations all over the country with the idea that it’s best to reserve a spot in a race and decide later if they’re going to actually run in it. The fact that Pletcher made the nomination so late is a good indicator. We’ll know for sure next Tuesday when Fierceness could be entered in the Pacific Classic.
In other Pacific Classic news, Nysos worked Thursday at Del Mar, just five days since his last workout. He went five furlongs in :58.80 (3/31).
“He went very well,” Baffert noted, adding that he may give Nysos one more breeze before the race. “He’ll probably go something easy next week. So far so good.”
Meanwhile, Del Mar announced that this year’s Pacific Classic card will be the richest day of racing ever (outside of the Breeders’ Cup) at the seaside oval. The purses for the 11-race program add up to $2,374,000, over $100,000 more than the previous record set on Pacific Classic Day in 2023.
“The 10-percent purse increase going into this summer,” racing secretary David Jerkens gives as one of the reasons for the increase. “We also increased our Maiden Dirt Bonus inflating some purses to $100,000 and we have a couple of maiden races that day.”
The purses for the five stakes races on the Pacific Classic undercard remain the same as last year. The G2 Del Mar Handicap and the G2 Del Mar Mile are each worth $300,000. The G3 Green Flash and the G3 Torrey Pines each boast purses of $150,000. Nominatons for all of those races also close at midnight tonight.
FRESU INCHES CLOSER BUT HERNANDEZ STILL TOPS LEADERBOARD
Jockey Antonio Fresu has a bad case of seconditis this summer at Del Mar. Oh, sure, he’s won his share of races. More than most. But this year he leads the jockey colony with 24 second-place finishes. On the day Juan Hernandez was winning six races, Fresu was finishing in second in seven races. And he’s second to Hernandez in the jockey standings after five weeks of racing.
There are 40-some riders in the jockey’s room who would give anything to be second in the Del Mar jockey standings but Fresu is not one to settle for second best. He’s been there before. He was second to Hernandez in the final standings last summer and second in 2023, his first year riding here at the seaside oval.
Last week Fresu cut into Hernandez’ lead, winning five races to the defending champ’s three. But Hernandez still maintains an eight-race lead in the standings with 29 victories to Fresu’s 21 with three weeks to go. Not insurmountable, but a tall task all the same.
Hector I. Berrios is having another solid meet with 18 wins. He had four last week including the win on Alpha Bella in the CTT & TOC Stakes on Friday. Kazushi Kimura is right behind him with 15 victories.
Umberto Rispoli got on a roll and won six races last week. He now has 11, tied with Armando Ayuso. Rounding out the Top Ten are Ricky Gonzalez with eight, Abel Lezcano and Tyler Baze with seven each, and Diego Herrera with six.
Three jockeys, Fresu, Berrios and Kimura each have won over $1 million in earnings with Hernandez leading the way with $2,254,256. Hernandez didn’t win any stakes races last week but he still leads in stakes victories at the meet with six followed by Berrios’ four and Rispoli’s three.
Bob Baffert remains in control of the trainer standings with 16 wins but a trio of trainers are looking to make a push in the final weeks. Philip D’Amato, Mark Glatt and John Sadler all have 11 victories a piece with Michael McCarthy lurking with 10 trips to the winner’s circle.
Peter Miller is next in the standings with nine wins followed by George Papaprodromou with eight; Doug O’Neill and Peter Eurton with seven each and Jeff Mullins and Tim Yakteen with five.
Two trainers have crossed the $1 million threshold at Del Mar this summer. Baffert with $1,534,440 and D’Amato with $1,089,580. Baffert and D’Amato are tied for the most stakes wins with four each.
Muir Hut Stables and Giddy Up JR lead the owners standings with five wins at the meet.
Field sizes remain healthy with an average of 8.60 after 178 races. 85 of those races have been run on the grass with an AFS of 8.89.
The Maiden Dirt Bonus has been a big success with some horses running for $100,000 in certain races. 83 horses have been awarded bonuses this year compared to 69 last year. The “Ship & Win” also has been well received with 103 horses qualifying for the incentive compared to 82 last year, a 24-percent increase over 2024.
Sixteen races have been run featuring new categories designed for former Northern California trainers. The field size for those races has averaged 10.12.
2025 KEEPS GETTING BETTER AND BETTER FOR JOCKEY RICKY GONZALEZ
Jockey Ricky Gonzalez was already having a very good year in 2025. He got married in April and recently got word that they are expecting their first child.
Professionally he was having a fairly nice meet at Del Mar going into last weekend. The just-turned-30-year-old rider had racked-up seven wins from just 34 mounts when he climbed aboard Velocity in the G1 Del Mar Oaks on Saturday. Minutes later he had won the biggest race of his young career.
Gonzalez had won a Grade I back in 2020 at Santa Anita when he captured the La Brea with Fair Maiden. And he has a collection of nice Grade 3 victories over the years.
“This was way better,” Gonzalez notes. “Because the first one was during COVID. There were no crowds or anything. This one (the Oaks win) was electrifying.”
The Oaks was Ricky’s first graded stakes win at Del Mar and his third stakes victory overall at the seaside oval.
“To be honest I thought she’d be better on the dirt,” Gonzalez said of his mount Velocity after the Oaks. “I had a wonderful trip. I just waited for a seam and when I saw it she went right through it.”
Ricardo Gonzalez was born in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico on July 10, 1995. He remembers first falling in love with horses when he was six. His grandfather was a breeder in Mexico.
“He had a bloodstock agent in Kentucky,” Gonzalez recalls, “who he bought some horses from and he took them to Mexico. The bloodstock agent saw my Dad and said ‘There’s a jockey right there.’ My Dad said, ‘No, I’m too old but I have a son who’s just like me.’ He told my dad ‘Show him a race and see if he likes it.’ So they took me to the races and I said ‘Oh yea, I want to do that.’
But Ricky still had some growing to do. He was only six but by the time he turned 12 he was jumping on horses and when he turned 15 he enrolled at the Frank Garza’s jockey’s school in Oxnard.
“I was riding match races,” Gonzalez remembers. “Then I went back to Mexico and rode my first race there and the next day I was on a plane to Phoenix and I started riding at Turf Paradise.”
That was in 2013. A week later on his seventh mount he notched his first win in the States.
“It was a pick up mount,” Gonzalez says. “I went straight to the lead. It was five furlongs and I’ve never looked back.”
He certainly had no problem getting mounts. In his first year he rode over five-hundred races and won 60 of them. In June of that year he moved his tack to Northern California and rode the fair circuit for a couple of months before landing at Golden Gate Fields.
“I loved it up there,” Gonzalez says. “We had a lot of journeyman riders you could learn a lot from. They helped me a lot.”
He would ride in the Bay Area for six years, refining his riding skills and winning races. He won a career high 197 in 2015 and finished second to Russell Baze in the jockey standings. Over the years up there he rode against the likes of Juan Hernandez, Abel Cedillo and Kyle Frey.
“In the summer of 2019 I told my agent ‘Next year I want to try and go down south,’” Gonzalez recalls. “So in the summer of 2020 I decided to make the move.”
That was the summer of COVID, which presented a whole new set of challenges for a young jockey trying to break into one of the toughest jockey colonies in the nation. he was undeterred.
“I had said the year before I was going to do it,” Gonzalez states. “And then COVID happens and I told myself ‘I’m not going to back down now.’ It was challenging. We couldn’t work horses for one.”
He credits trainer Peter Miller for giving him a leg-up in Southern California.
Gonzalez rode his first summer meet at Del Mar that year and finished seventh in the jockey standings with 16 victories. He returned in the fall and won another seven races. Gonzalez has turned into one of the more consistent riders at Del Mar, winning at least six or seven races during every meet. But he has bigger fish to fry.
“Like everybody I’d like to win the Derby,” Gonzalez says when asked about his goals. “A Breeders’ Cup and all that. Main thing is to stay healthy.”
Winning the Del Mar Oaks isn’t the only highlight of 2025 for Gonzalez. He and 1st Bet’s commentator and former jockey Jessica Pyfer tied the knot in the spring and they have their first baby on the way.
If good fortune paves the way to happiness, Ricky Gonzalez is on the right track.
STRAUSS NAMED NEW MEMBER OF THE JOCKEY CLUB
Del Mar’s own Bill Strauss has been named one of the new members of The Jockey Club. Strauss is a member of the DMTC Board of Directors and served on the board of the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC) from 2013 to 2022. Strauss was elected to The Jockey Club along with nine other new members Monday.
Strauss has been associated with some pretty good racehorses he’s campaigned in various partnerships over the years. His first racehorse was Pamplemouse, named after his brother’s restaurant across the street from the track. There was also Mizdirection, winner of back-to-back Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprints in 2012 and 2013. And let’s not forget Hot Rod Charlie, a fan favorite and runner-up in the 2021 Belmont Stakes.
The Jockey Club is dedicated to the improvement of Thoroughbred breeding and racing and is the breed registry for Thoroughbreds in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico.
COOLING OUT: It wasn’t meant to be a sign. Trainers school their horses in the paddock all the time. But when Journalism showed up Sunday afternoon it sent a glimmer of hope that this is a sign the connections are planning on doing business at Del Mar this summer. Trainer Michael McCarthy and prime owner Aron Wellman have said Journalism’s work this weekend will help them make a decision whether to run the Preakness and Haskell winner next Saturday in the Pacific Classic, or wait…Grand Slam Smile came out of her victory in the Solana Beach last Sunday in good order but no plans have been made for her next race. The Solana Beach win was the first stakes win at Del Mar for both the trainer, Sean McCarthy, and the jockey William Antongeorgi III…Notable works this week: Monday – Cavalieri (4f, :47.60); Jasmina (4f, :49.40); Liberation (4f, :47.20); Desert Gate (5f, :59.40) and Mirahmadi (5f, :59.60). Wednesday – Broadway Unions (4f, :47.40) and Afternoon Nap (5f, :59.40). Thursday – Silent Law (5f, 1:00.00) and Two Rivers Over (5f, 1:00.80).