Pacific Classic Trophy © Benoit Photo
G1 PACIFIC CLASSIC: A WEEK EARLIER AND FOR GOOD REASON
The 36th running of the G1, $1 million Pacific Classic is two weeks away. It’s being run a week earlier this year on August 22. Last year it was run on August 30. There are a number of reasons for the shift.
“In the last couple of years, just the way things have fallen on the calendar, it made more sense to have the Pacific Classic later,” Racing Secretary David Jerkens says. “Ideally where it is now is where you would want it to be at the end of August. You’re trying to get it on a weekend where you’re pretty much the focal point of racing, which we are where we’re suited right now.”
The date change is also an effort by Del Mar to accommodate the folks up at Santa Anita and the Breeders’ Cup.
“The timing works better for the Santa Anita schedule,” Jerkens notes, “and the preps for the Breeders’ Cup. A lot of it’s dictated by when the Breeders’ Cup lands. Sometimes it’s early November. This year it’s at the end of October. It’s a week earlier so that impacts things moving a little earlier with the Santa Anita prep races.
“When we looked at it,” Jerkens continues, “we thought we could stay at the same time frame and be close to Santa Anita’s prep race (the G1 Goodwood on Sept. 26) or we can go earlier. Obviously, we don’t want to go on Travers Day (August 29) so we landed on the 22nd.”
It’s not the first time Del Mar’s marquee race of the summer meet has undergone a date change. The Pacific Classic has been run as early as August 9 (1997) and as late as September 6 (2009). It was run on Sundays nine years in a row from 2001 to 2009 and 14 of 16 years from 1999 to 2014. It’s been run on Saturday every year since. The year Cigar (and his 16-race win streak) ran in the Classic it was run on Saturday, August 10, 1996.
It’s all a part of the job Jerkens took on in 2014. This will be his 13th year writing the races for Del Mar.
“I grew up around the game,” Jerkens points out. “My father (James Jerkens) was a horse trainer. My grandfather (H. Allen Jerkens) was a famous horse trainer, so I grew up going to the track. I wasn’t particularly interested in following in their footsteps for multiple reasons. Getting up at five in the morning everyday wasn’t my cup of tea. I just didn’t have the itch and quite frankly I wasn’t as skilled. The corporate ladder is hot walker, groom, assistant, and foreman. I basically leveled out at hot walker.”
Most would say Del Mar is better off because of it. Jerkens is one of the most respected racing executives in the business, which bodes well when it comes time to recruit new barns for an upcoming meet or convince horseman to bring their talented equines to the bigger races at the seaside oval.
“I was intrigued by the industry and the inner workings of how races unfold and the management side of it,” Jerkens recalls. “When I got out of college, I started working at Aqueduct back in 2000, right around 9/11. I was in New York for five years and then Golden Gate Fields hired me as an assistant racing secretary. Tom (Robbins, Del Mar’s V.P. of Racing) hired me in 2014.”
Jerkens has orchestrated 12 Pacific Classics and number 13 is shaping up to be one of his finest. With a potentially larger than usual field and the possibility of a filly taking on the boys, there’s no shortage of plots to follow in this year’s Pacific Classic.
ASCOT RUN HAS RUIVA PRIMED FOR SUNDAY’S G3 SORRENTO STAKES
Trainer Wesley Ward has trained his share of fast horses and Sunday he brings one of his speedballs to Del Mar for the G3 Sorrento Stakes, a six furlong test for 2-year-old fillies.
Ruiva broke her maiden at first asking at Churchill Downs, trouncing the competition by seven lengths in the slop in April. She was so impressive they packed her up and shipped her overseas for the Royal Ascot meet where she ran third in the G2 Queen Mary Stakes.
“It was a 30-horse field and the field split up into two groups,” says Ward’s assistant Blake Heap. “Our half went to this side and we beat that group. She thought she won the race but the winner was in the other group. The horse way over there beat her. That was Coolmore’s best horse and she barely beat us.”
Ruiva, which is Portuguese for redhead, is a beautiful chestnut by Munnings. She’s been at Del Mar for the past week.
“She’s very talented,” Heap notes. “She works pretty good every time but she doesn’t have to lay her body down to get fit. She’s kind of a big barreled horse. At Churchill she won so easy I don’t think she got a lot out of the race. Then we get to England and run there. After that she’s been working hard so I think she’s got a little more air to her now.”
And don’t be fooled by the surface switch. Heap thinks Ruiva is better on the dirt.
“She works better on dirt,” Heap contends. “She handled the grass okay but on the dirt she does it easy.”
She’ll have to contend with a Bob Baffert 2-year-old. Holmby won first time out at Del Mar on opening weekend. She’s a daughter of Corniche, a first-crop sire who Baffert trained during her 2-year-old season which they capped off with a win the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
Jockey Juan Hernandez, who rode Ruiva in her first two races, has opted to ride Holmby in the Sorrento. So Ward will bring riding phenom Yedsit Hazlewood in to ride Ruiva. He was runner-up for the Outstanding Apprentice Eclipse Award last year and Laurel Park’s winter meet riding champion.
Trainer Peter Miller has two horses entered in the Sorrento. Belleza Latina was purchased privately and is new to his barn. She broke her maiden in her second race at Churchill Downs. Crazy Hot Mess was part of Miller’s Kentucky string that he brought back to Del Mar this summer. She broke her maiden first time out in the slop at Ellis Park.
Blockade is coming into the race off of an eight-length victory in her second career race. Trained by Ryan Hanson, she’s the daughter of Knicks Go.
The G3 Sorrento is Race 6 on the nine-race Sunday program. Probable post is 4:30 p.m.
Here’s the field from the rail with the jockeys and the morning line odds: Dash (Ricky Gonzalez, 6-1); Belleza Latina (Emisael Jaramillo, 8-1); Crazy Hot Mess (Assael Espinoza, 12-1); Ruiva (7/5); Holmby (8/5), and Blockade (Adrian Escobedo, 8-1).
EMISAEL JARAMILLO MAKES INSTANT IMPACT IN CALIFORNIA
Jockeys from around the world are always taking a stab at California racing, arriving with dreams of making big money, winning big races and realizing dreams they have had their entire lives. Most end up leaving a few years later realizing what actors have been finding out about Hollywood all these years: it’s a tough place to break into. Some are good enough and lucky enough to hang on and some even make a name for themselves. But even that takes a couple of lean years to accomplish.
Late last December a veteran jockey based in Florida brought his tack out to Southern California. Emisael Jaramillo had done well in Florida, winning races by the bunches and becoming a go-to rider at Gulfstream Park. He had ridden in the Kentucky Derby and the Breeders’ Cup but he’d never won one of the big races. Jaramillo decided he needed to go to a place where he could make that happen.
“Sometimes you can achieve a lot of things in your career but still have a lot of things you still want to do,” Jaramillo explains. “Southern California has been known for getting the best horses in the U.S.A. My main factor for coming here was to get Grade 1’s, Breeders’ Cup and Kentucky Derby.”
Turned out that two- or three-year adjustment period was not in the plans for Jaramillo. Instead of languishing in the middle of the jockey standings, waiting his turn to get on the better horses, he went out and won right away. So much so that Jaramillo won the riders’ title at his very first meet, the Classic Meet at Santa Anita this winter. He rode 50 winners, eight more than runner-up and perennial jockey champion Juan Hernandez.
“I owe a lot to Doug O’Neill because he opened the door to his barn to me,” Jaramillo says. “He gave me every horse that I needed to win in any race. And my agent, Tom Knust, has done an excellent job. Every trainer that opened their doors for me I’m very thankful because they didn’t know me but they gave me a chance to ride their horses and thank God we’ve done very well.”
In a short time the 49-year-old jockey has established himself in one of the toughest jockey colonies in the U.S. Everything seems to be falling into place. He’s winning big races. He won four graded stakes in that first meeting at Santa Anita. He captured the G2 Charlie Whittingham during the Hollywood meet at Santa Anita this spring and last weekend Jaramillo he won the G1 Bing Crosby at Del Mar, a “Win and You’re In” for the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. Not bad for a man who came from humble beginnings in rural Venezuela.
“I was born on a farm,” Jaramillo recalls, “so since I was a kid I’ve had horses around me every day of my life. I was riding Quarter horse races on the farm. I was 12 years old when I decided to focus on being a jockey.”
He became a professional rider in 1996 at the age of 19. By 1997 he was riding at Venezuela’s premier racetrack where he won his first riding title in 1999. He would become the winningest rider in Venezuelan horse racing history, winning more than 4,000 races and three Venezuelan Triple Crowns.
But the desire to improve on his accomplishments pulled him away from his comfort zone at home and to the U.S. where for several years in the early 2000’s he bounced around Florida and Puerto Rico. He took several years off from racing but finally landed in Florida fulltime in 2015.
Now, amid the biggest success of his career, tragedy has struck in Jaramillo’s home country. A massive earthquake has paralyzed Venezuela, leaving those far from home worried about friends and family back home.
“We have and know a lot of people in Venezuela,” Jaramillo states. “Thank God our family was not affected by the earthquake but we stand with all the people who are suffering right now. This time is really hard for our country.”
Jaramillo has done his best to remain focused on the task at hand. While the jockey colony at Del Mar is relatively the same as the one he faced up in Arcadia, there have been some additions, like a Hall of Fame rider (Joel Rosario) and a possible future Hall of Famer (Julien Leparoux).
“I really like it when there are a lot of good jockeys,” Jaramillo insists. “Competition makes you better. Without competition there is nothing to keep you going so I like it when I ride with excellent jockeys. For me, the ones that are here are legends and I’m just glad to be riding with them.”
COOLING OUT: Net Par came back ‘good’ from his victory in Friday’s $100,000 Graduation Stakes according to trainer Antonio Garcia who says they’ll wait a few days before deciding if they will come back in the I’m Smokin Stakes at the end of the meet…Trainer Richard Baltas says on a scale of one-to-10 he’s at a five as to whether or not he will run British Isles in the Pacific Classic. He says he’ll see how the Santa Anita Handicap winner is doing and how the race comes up before making a decision…Trainer Jose D’Angelo is on the fence as to running his newly acquired Bartholdy in the Pacific Classic or the G2 Pat O’Brien a week later. “When we got him he came back in good order,” D’Angelo states. “We’ll see how he trains next week and go from there.”…Del Mar had it’s first $100 payoff on a $2 win ticket this summer when Grandisimo got home first under rider Abel Lezcano Friday. The Race 8 winner, who is trained by Brian Cunningham, went off at 57-1 and paid $116.20…No one hit the Pick 6 for the second day so Saturday there will be a carryover of $148,537…Notable works on Saturday: Dirt – Lovesick Blues (3f, :36.60); Dr. Venkman (4f, :48.60); Grand Slam Smile (4f, :48.00); Mohaven (4f, :47.80); Mondego (4f, :49.20); Mirahmadi (5f, 1:02.20); Privman (5f, 1:02.20); Somerset West (5f, 1:00.00), and The Goat (5f, :59.40). 188 horses put in official works Saturday on the main track at Del Mar.