Journalism © Zoe Metz
PACIFIC CLASSIC NOMINATIONS CLOSE, JOURNALISM ON THE LIST
Nominations for the 34th running of the G1 Pacific Classic closed at midnight last night. The race on August 30 is a “Win and You’re In” for the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Ten horses were nominated to Del Mar’s marquee race including Preakness and Haskell winner Journalism. The son of Curlin is scheduled to work Saturday morning after which trainer Mike McCarthy and primary owner Aron Wellman are expected to announce whether they will run in the Classic, or wait for another race.
Fierceness, last year’s G1 Travers winner, was also on the nomination list. Trained by Todd Pletcher, the son of City of Light, is also nominated for the G1 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Saratoga on August 31. Friday morning owner Mike Repole put out a tweet asking fellow tweeters to help him make the decision whether to run Fierceness in the Pacific Classic or the Gold Cup to which Del Mar responded with a tweet of a picture of the beach.
The probables for the Pacific Classic remain Nysos, Mirahmadi, Midnight Mammoth and Tarantino. Also on the list of nominees were John Sadler’s Indispensable, Mark Glatt’s Ultimate Gamble, and Lure Him In from the Sam Wilensky barn.
Baeza, the runner-up in the G2 Jim Dandy and third-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes, is also on the list of nominees. But unless trainer John Shirreffs has a change of heart, the colt is expected to wait and run in the G1 Pennsylvania Derby at Parx September 20.
Another glaring but expected absence from the list of nominees was White Abarrio. The 2023 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner initially targeted the Pacific Classic only to have trainer Saffie Joseph and the connections pull the plug a week ago and opt to stay back east to run in the Gold Cup.
Entries for the Pacific Classic will be drawn Tuesday.
SPEED BOAT BEACH RETURNS IN G2 PAT O’BRIEN AT DEL MAR SATURDAY
Speed Boat Beach will be back in action this Saturday when he faces eight rivals in the G2 Pat O’Brien at Del Mar. The seven furlong test is a “Win and You’re In” for the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Del Mar on November 1.
The 5-year old son of Bayern has shown in the past that he can hang with some of the best Thoroughbreds in the country…when he’s healthy. His owners, Pegram, Watson and Weitman, have been very patient with their horse, weathering several health issues over the past year and a half.
Speed Boat Beach served notice of his enormous talent in his very first race, a scintillating maiden victory on the dirt at Del Mar on closing weekend in 2022 -- (Track record of 1:01.86 for 5 ½ furlongs.) He followed that with a victory in the $100,000 Speakeasy turf sprint at Santa Anita giving trainer Bob Baffert all the encouragement he needed to ship his young colt to Keeneland to run in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint. It was not one of his better performances and he finished ninth. But one month later Speed Boat Beach rebounded with a game win in the G3 Cecil B. DeMille at Del Mar.
Then Baffert did what he does often with his talented young horses. He gave Speed Boat Beach time off to develop and grow into himself. He was rewarded with a runner-up finish in the colt’s 3-year-old debut in the G2 Santa Anita Sprint Championship, earning a return to the Breeders’ Cup, this time in the Sprint.
The colt set the pace but got rundown late by Eclipse Award winner Elite Power, Gunite and Nakatomi. No shame in that. Undeterred, Baffert came back with Speed Boat Beach in the Malibu at Santa Anita and he won the prestigious Grade I race.
The sky appeared to be the limit for Speed Boat Beach and big things were forecast for 2024. Then the health issues emerged. Instead of racing he was recuperating. A few months turned into a year and it was not until May of this year that the talented horse would be healthy enough to race.
Speed Boat Beach set the pace in the $200,000 St. Matthews at Churchill Downs and then inexplicably faded to last. Turned out he had bled and for the past three months Baffert has patiently brought the dark bay horse back to health again.
“He’s coming off a long layoff so you don’t know what to expect,” Baffert admits. “But I think I have him pretty tight for it. I would have liked to get a race into him but I didn’t have that choice.
“These horses come up with little things,” Baffert continues. “You just give them time. We know he’s a really good horse. We want to be ready for the Breeders’ Cup in the fall.”
The ‘other’ Baffert horse in the Pat O’Brien is Maymun, a 4-year-old son of Frosted. He’s coming back from an 18-month layoff and taking a big step up into graded stakes company.
“He’s actually a very talented horse,” Baffert notes. “I know it’s taking a big step with him. He’s actually eligible for an allowance race but when they’re doing really well I’d rather take a chance in a stakes race. They’re going to run just as hard.”
Maymun was going to be the favorite for the Santa Anita Derby in 2024 and then he had a setback and Baffert turned him out.
Another horse returning from a layoff, albeit much shorter than Maymun’s, is Stronghold, the winner of the 2024 Santa Anita Derby and trainer Philip D’Amato’s first ever Kentucky Derby horse. He hasn’t raced since running 10th of 11 horses in the G1 Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park in January.
“A little issue coming out of the Pegasus,” D’Amato says of the layoff. “We gave him plenty of time to recoup and he’s acting like he’s ready to go.”
D’Amato is taking a wait and see attitude with Stronghold. Waiting to see how he handles the seven furlongs in the Pat O’Brien before choosing whether to put him back in two-turn races again.
Dr. Venkman has returned to sprinting in 2025. After runner-up finishes in the G2 Triple Bend at Santa Anita and G3 Kelly’s Landing at Churchill Downs, he ran a game fourth in the G1 Bing Crosby last month. Much to the dismay of his connections, the son of Ghostzapper has drawn the inside post for the O’Brien.
“He doesn’t like to run on the inside of horses,” trainer Mark Glatt says. “He doesn’t extend himself. These last two races he’s been caught inside. Just haven’t been lucky enough to get a better post.”
Another horse shortening up for the O’Brien is Express Train, who has compiled $1.6 million in earnings, mostly in two-turn races. But trainer John Shirreffs saw his 8-year-old son of Union Rags shorten himself up in his last race, the mile and a sixteenth G2 San Diego, and sees the O’Brien as a perfect fit.
“He’s like an old friend,” Shirreffs says of Express Train. “We’ve gone a lot of miles together.”
The 40th running of the Pat O’Brien is Race 9 on the 10-race program Saturday. Probable post is 6 p.m.
Here’s the field from the rail out with the jockeys and the morning line odds: Dr. Venkman (Umberto Rispoli, 4-1); Speed Boat Beach (Juan Hernandez, 5/2); Spirit of Makena (Mirco Demuro, 20-1); Maymun (Kazushi Kimura, 5-1); Awesome Rhythm (Armando Ayuso, 20-1); Stronghold (Antonio Fresu, 3-1); Express Train (Hector I. Berrios, 12-1); Tapalo (Abel Lezcano, 12-1), and Man O Rose (Edwin Maldonado, 8-1).
HEAVY FOG SHROUDS THE MORNING WORKS AT DEL MAR FRIDAY
Clockers were at Mother Nature’s mercy Friday morning as a thick fog blanketed the Fairgrounds. Horses on the track were shrouded in a white haze, making the task of getting an accurate time on a workout virtually impossible. Horses became visible to onlookers in the grandstand as they passed the sixteenth pole only to disappear again before they hit the first turn.
Del Mar’s official clockers are positioned in a room on the sixth floor of the grandstand, a perfect view of the hundreds of horses who work daily at Del Mar. But on mornings like Friday, when the thick fog moves in off the Pacific Ocean, all they see is white and, in the case this morning, they couldn’t even see the infield.
Works are important in a horse’s preparation for a race and they are often part of a months-long schedule, spaced-out to have the horse in top shape come race day. To miss a work can throw-off that timing. It happens all the time back east, particularly in the winter when tracks are soaked in rain or frozen by snow and/or ice.
Trainers have different approaches to the fog. Tim Yakteen had his Breeders’ Cup Mile runner-up, Johannes, out for a gallop early this morning so he went ahead with the exercise. But for the horses he planned to work at sunrise, he simply pushed them back to later in the morning.
“The nice thing is the way it was set up you could see completely up and down the lane,” Yakteen noted. “If you were on a horse or clocking a horse in the stretch you could see the posts.”
Trainer Peter Miller said he just went ahead and worked his horses.
“My exercise rider wears a watch so he gives the time,” he points out. “He usually nails it. I got them from the eighth pole galloping out to the seven so I got the last quarter on it. There’s nothing really you can do. I happen to be very lucky that my exercise riders are some of the best so I felt confident.”
The track opens at 4:30 and while it was foggy, clockers could still see well enough to time a few horses. The track closes at six for renovations and then reopens at 6:30. It was during that renovation break that the fog rolled in. Around seven o’clock the fog began to lift a bit and by the third session at 7:45 clockers had a view of the backstretch and it was back to business as usual.
PAIR OF HANDICAPPING SEMINARS ON TAP THIS WEEKEND
Racing fans can sit in on a pair of free handicapping seminars this weekend held in 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 horseplayer Carlos Ortega. Sunday will see host Dan Smith working with jockey agent Tom Knust.
COOLING OUT: A couple of firsts Thursday: Trainer Paula Capestro notched her first victory of the summer meet with Mutt Dillin in Race 2. The winner paid $74.60. Then in Race 3, trainer Dean Pederson scored his first win of the meet with Thirsty Trickster…Notable works on Friday: Nadette (3f, :37.80); Lure Him In (4f, :48.60); Pushiness ((4f, :49.00); Roll on Big Joe (4f, 48.20); Tarantino (4f, :50.00), and Straight No Chaser (5f, :58.80).