Joel Rosario © Benoit Photo
ROSARIO, O’NEILL, REDDAM DISTANCE THEMSELVES IN STANDINGS
And down the stretch they come in the jockey and trainer standings at Del Mar this summer. With two weeks left to go Joel Rosario looks like Sweet Azteca in the Rancho Bernardo and Doug O’Neill resembles Knightsbridge in the Pacific Classic. Both have taken commanding leads in their respective divisions.
Rosario took full advantage of the leader and defending champion, Juan Hernandez, being out of town for two days last week. He not only grabbed the lead but then ran up the score by the end of the week. Rosario won eight races last week and opened up a seven-race lead over Hernandez, who made a quick trip over to England. Umberto Rispoli and Antonio Fresu are next with 18 victories. Kazushi Kimura has 17 followed by Emisael Jaramillo and Armando Ayuso with 14. Hector I. Berrios has won a dozen races and Joe Bravo and Tyler Baze round out the Top 10 with seven.
In the past two weeks Rosario has won 16 races and now leads the jockey standings in earnings with $2,117,492.
Hernandez still leads in stakes wins with seven. Umberto Rispoli, who scored in two of the four graded stakes races on Pacific Classic Day, is next with five.
O’Neill tacked on another win to his already sizable lead in the trainer standings. He’s the first to reach 20 wins by a trainer during the summer meet this year, eight better than his nearest competition Philip D’Amato. George Papaprodromou is next with 11 wins followed by Peter Miller with 10 and John Sadler and Mark Glatt with nine. Michael McCarthy has eight. Bob Baffert, Jeff Mullins and Craig Lewis round out the Top Ten with seven victories.
D’Amato teamed up with Rispoli to win a pair of graded stakes races on the Pacific Classic undercard and now leads all trainers with four stakes wins. Jeff Mullins is next with three, two by Del Mar Derby winner Proletariat.
Reddam Racing holds a comfortable lead in the owner standings with eight wins. They also lead in earnings with $574,400. Harris Farms and Hronis Racing are next with four victories.
The average field size this summer meet is holding steady at 8.52. It’s still one of the best in the nation and a tick higher than 2025 and 2024. There have been 214 races and 1,823 starters. The AFS got a boost from the large fields assembled over Pacific Classic weekend.
The ‘Ship & Win’ program gets some credit for the increased field sizes. This year 114 horses have qualified for the ‘S&W’, one better than last year. 54 have started on the dirt, 60 on the turf. There have been 19 ‘S&W’ winners at the meet including last week’s Pacific Classic (Knightsbridge) and Del Mar Oaks (Tam Tam) winners.
THANKSGIVING DAY RACING HIGHLIGHTS 2026 BING CROSBY SEASON
Thanksgiving Day racing returns to Del Mar this fall, part of the seaside oval’s 13th Bing Crosby Season. The 13-day meet begins a week later than last year, on Friday, November 7, and concludes on Sunday, November 29. In between there’s a 15-race stakes schedule offering $2.1 million in purses and highlighted by the FanDuel Racing Turf Festival over Thanksgiving weekend.
Del Mar jumps right into the stakes action with the $100,000 Let It Ride Stakes on opening day. It’s a one-mile grass event for 3-year-olds. Opening weekend continues with a couple of Cal-bred stakes races beginning with the seven furlong, $100,000 The Chosen Vron Stakes for 3-year-olds and up on Saturday, November 8. It’s the ladies turn on Sunday, November 9 when fillies and mares square-off in the seven-furlong, $100,000 Betty Grable Stakes.
Week two of the Bing Crosby season shines the spotlight on the juveniles with the seven furlong $100,000 Desi Arnaz Stakes for the fillies on Saturday, November 15 and the first graded stake of the meet, the G3 Bob Hope, also a seven-furlong sprint, on Sunday, November 16.
The G3 Native Diver Stakes highlights the racing in week three. The 1 1/8 mile test generally features the top handicap horses on the grounds. It was won last year by Nevada Beach. The Native Diver on Saturday, November 21 is the last of the dirt stakes races until closing day.
That’s because the FanDuel Racing Turf Festival is next on the menu. It begins Thanksgiving Day with the $100,000 Red Carpet Stakes, a 1 3/8 mile grass marathon for fillies and mares. It continues Friday, November 27 with an even longer race, the 1 ½ mile G2 Hollywood Turf Cup for 3-year-olds and up.
Del Mar serves up a triple header of graded stakes action on Saturday, November 28 with the G1 Hollywood Derby, the G2 Seabiscuit and the G3 Jimmy Durante.
The Hollywood Derby is a mile and an eighth on the grass for top 3-year-olds. Last year trainer Chad Brown shipped in Salamis to win the $300,000 race. The Seabiscuit features quality 3-year-olds and up going a mile and a sixteenth on the turf. It was won last year by 68-1 longshot Call Sign Seven. The Jimmy Durante is a chance for 2-year-old fillies to shine. It’s a mile on the grass captured by another Chad Brown trainee, Just Aloof, in 2025.
The Bing Crosby season goes out with a bang with four stakes races on closing day, November 29. Highlighting the agenda is the G1 Matriarch for fillies and mares going one mile on the turf.
The undercard consists of the G3 Cecil B. DeMille for top 2-year-olds. There’s also the lone dirt stakes race of the weekend, the G3 Bayakoa for fillies and mares going a mile on the main track. And the $100,000 Stormy Liberal turf sprint for 3-year-olds and up.
Racing will be conducted on Friday, Saturday and Sunday during the Bing Crosby season except for the final week when they also run on Thursday. First post daily is 12:30 p.m except on Thanksgiving Day when the racing begins at 11 a.m. Tickets are on sale now.
FLORIDA TRAINER MAKES HIS MARK ON THE BREEDERS’ CUP, DEL MAR
Last year’s Breeders’ Cup was a coming out of sorts for 36-year-old trainer Jose D’Angelo. He won his first Breeders’ Cup race with Shisospicy in the Turf Sprint. Then before the young trainer could get the confetti out of his hair, he scored his second Breeders’ Cup race with Bentornato in the Sprint. For even the best trainers it can take years to win two Breeders’ Cup races. For D’Angelo it took less than an hour.
“That was a big day for my team,” D’Angelo recalls. “We shipped the horses from Kentucky to Del Mar, and I remember every day perfect. I was training the horses, and they were going to show good. I was very confident in them.”
Suffice to say the Breeders’ Cup experience left a lasting impression on the Venezuelan conditioner. Of Del Mar in particular. So much so that this summer he’s sent a string of horses and is running a stable at the seaside oval. It’s always hard for a new trainer to make an impact on Del Mar. It can take some lean years. So far through racing on Sunday, D’Angelo has only visited the winner’s circle once when Bojaca Blessing won on July 23.
“I’m trying to get better horses and I’m trying to show my skills,” D’Angelo says. “I decided to send some horses to California because every time we went, we had success with the horses. I feel these horses that I send match up perfect with the track. Every horse has run good for me.”
D’Angelo’s roots in horse racing run deep. He was born into a family of horseman, dating back several generations.
“I’ve been in love with horses since day one,” D’Angelo recalls. “My father was a trainer in America and Venezuela, so I was at the barn when I was a baby. I learned everything from him. My grandfather was a journalist in Venezuela, so I was always around horses.”
His grandfather was a respected race writer and handicapper for local publications and Venezuela’s version of the Racing Form. His father was “Kiko” D’Angelo, a champion Thoroughbred horse trainer in Venezuela who brought his training career and family to South Florida in 2018.
“I was at the university pursuing a career in business when a friend asked me to train some horses for him,” D’Angelo explains about his start as a trainer. “I told my father I wanted to be a horse trainer. He was concerned knowing that I was close to finishing my schooling, but I told him I could do both and he said I had his support.”
That was in 2010. In Venezuela an aspiring trainer must take two years of school to get a license, so D’Angelo didn’t saddle his first runners until 2012.
“In December of 2012 I had my first race and I got DQ’d,” D’Angelo states. “But I loved horse racing and in 2013 I got my first win. Later I won the big race in my country, the Classico Simon Bolivar (held annually in Caracas). I was the youngest person to ever win the race.”
That was with Dreaming of Gold in 2014. D’Angelo would win a national training title in 2018 and Venezuela’s equivalent of an Eclipse Award. But by 2019 his father had moved his stable to the U.S. and D’Angelo was looking for new challenges.
“I came to the United States at the end of 2019,” D’Angelo remembers. “My very first horses were between four or five thousand (dollars). We did pretty good with them. A lot of trainers helped me because I started asking questions about everything. They were very good to me. I thank Bob Baffert, Kenny McPeek and Chad Brown; they really helped me here. They gave me good advice because every track is different. They went there before you and they know everything.”
His days of training four-or-five-thousand-dollar claimers were numbered because one day a son of Tapiture came along and D’Angelo’s life would change forever.
“The horse that put me on the map was Jesus’ Team,” he says. “He ran third in the Preakness in 2020, second in the Breeders Cup (Dirt Mile) in 2020, and second in the G1 Pegasus World Cup in 2021. Later we got Shisospicy and Bentornato.”
D’Angelo now has horses at Palm Meadows, Gulfstream Park, Colonial Downs, California and New York. Bentornato is done for the year after suffering a small sesamoid fracture but D’Angelo hopes to have him back in 2027. Shisospicy developed a fever and later an infection that derailed her 2026 campaign, but she’s back in training.
“She’s doing very good,” D’Angelo states. “She’s up at Saratoga. We plan to run her in September to get her ready for the Breeders’ Cup again. We’re still looking for a race but she’s very close to being ready.”
As is the case with Venezuelans across the globe, they wonder and worry about their countrymen back home following the devastating earthquakes in June.
“All of my family was good,” D’Angelo says. “But so many people lost everything. I feel really bad about it.”
As his country slowly gets back on its feet, D’Angelo keeps plugging away with his string of horses at Del Mar.
“Everybody here is so nice,” DeAngelo remarks. “Like (Racing Secretary) David Jerkens and the people who work at the track. That’s why I’m very happy with what I have there and I’ll keep supporting the horseracing over there.”
COOLING OUT: Jockey Umberto Rispoli was named Jockey of the Week by the Jockey’s Guild following his two graded stakes victories at Del Mar the past weekend. Rispoli won the G2 Del Mar Mile with King of Gosford and the G2 Green Flash with Sorrento Sky. Rispoli won at a 31% clip last week and compiled $558,020 in earnings. Since his return to the races in late June following a spill last January, Rispoli has won 21 races (23%)…Jockey Juan Hernandez was back out on the road Tuesday when he flew to Saratoga to ride a horse in the $200,000 Bolton Landing Stakes on Wednesday. He was on a plane and flying back to San Diego last night. He has five mounts on Thursday’s card at Del Mar…Proletariat came out of his victory in the G2 Del Mar Derby Sunday in good order. Trainer Jeff Mullins has no plans yet on where he will run the gelding by Raging Bull next…Knightsbridge vaulted up to third place in the Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic Rankings following his win in the G1 Pacific Classic last Saturday. He trails his stablemate Sovereignty and Forever Young. Knightsbridge is also second now in the NTRA Top Thoroughbred Poll behind Sovereignty…Jockey Antonio Fresu has announced he will move his tack back east to ride during the new Belmont Park meet that opens September 18…Notable works Thursday: Dirt – Phone Booth (3f, :37.80); Call Sign Seven (4f, :51.60); Look Forward (5f, :58.00); Princesa Moche (5f, 1:03.00), and Super Corredora (5f, :59.80). 101 horses put in official works at Del Mar Wednesday: 93 on the main track and eight on the turf.