Raging Torrent © Benoit Photo
RAGING TORRENT’S FUTURE UP-IN-THE-AIR AFTER RECENT INJURY
The racing career of one of the top racehorses in the country is in limbo after he developed swelling behind his knee. Raging Torrent, the defending champion of the G2 Pat O’Brien at Del Mar, is getting some rest and evaluation as his connections decide whether he will resume racing or go out to stud.
“It’s (the injury) nothing major so we’re in discussions of his future,” trainer Doug O’Neill says. “It looks like he’s going to be retired but he’s sound and he looks great. We’re just playing it by ear.”
Raging Torrent made his first big splash in an overnight stakes at Churchill Downs last year. O’Neill brought him back to Del Mar, where the colt broke his maiden as a 2-year-old, and he crashed The Chosen Vron’s party and upset the popular Cal-bred in the G2 Pat O’Brien.
He went on to run seventh in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint only to rebound nicely and win the G1 Malibu on opening day at Santa Anita. O’Neill then shipped him overseas, to Dubai, where he rewarded his connections with an impressive victory in the G2 Godolphin Mile on the Dubai World Cup undercard.
Raging Torrent returned to the states, recuperated at Santa Anita, then shipped east and captured the G1 Met Mile at Saratoga on Belmont Stakes Day. The 4-year old son of Maximus Mischief was recently ranked third in the nation in the NTRA Top Thoroughbred Poll behind Mindframe and Sovereignty.
“He came out of the Met Mile in great shape,” O’Neill notes, “and then just in the last few weeks at Santa Anita we discovered it. It’s very subtle. He’s going to require a little time.”
There were thoughts he might run at Del Mar this summer. Next week’s G1 Bing Crosby was one possibility and/or a defense of his title in the Pat O’Brien in August. But now all of those plans are scratched.
“He could come back and race,” O’Neill adds. “It’s just a matter of discussions and negotiations and all the stuff that I’m not really privy to. In the next few weeks the owners will make a decision on what’s going on.”
Raging Torrent is owned by Yuesheng Zhang and Craig Dado. O’Neill says Raging Torrent’s stallion future and where he might stand is also undecided at this time.
JOCKEY TIAGO PEREIRA TO MISS TIME AFTER SPILL SATURDAY
Jockey Tiago Pereira is expected to miss a number of weeks after suffering facial fractures in a turf course spill at Del Mar Saturday.
It happened in Race 5 when his mount Origami clipped heels and fell near the three-eighths pole. Both horse and rider momentarily stayed down on the grass before Origami finally got up on her feet. Pereira tried to stand up but promptly laid back down on the ground until paramedics arrived.
He was transported to First Aid where the decision was made to take him to the hospital.
Doug O’Neill, the trainer of Origami, visited Pereira at the hospital Saturday night.
“He got little mini-fractures in his cheek,” O’Neill notes. “So, he’ll have surgery on his face. He’s in good spirits and in good hands. The doctor swore he’ll look like George Clooney when he’s done.”
Pereira’s agent, Craig Stephens, says the surgery will be done in the next couple of days. He expects the jockey to miss 8-to-10 weeks.
As for Origami, she walked onto the horse ambulance and was taken back to the barn.
“Thank god she’s fine,” O’Neill says. “She needed seven stitches but she walks down, jogs down. She’ll have a compression bandage for a few days. She got lucky.”
GRAND SLAM SMILE RETURNS TO DEL MAR IN SUNDAY’S OSUNITAS
When the Pleasanton Meet closed last December, Northern California trainer Steve Specht decided to retire from racing after a successful career that dates back to 1969. At the time the 75-year old conditioner had 16 horses in his barn that needed to find new homes, one of which was Grand Slam Smile, the 2023 Cal-bred champion 2-year old filly.
Enter trainer Sean McCarthy, who has known Specht for 40 years. Specht asked McCarthy if he was interested in the filly and he jumped at the opportunity.
“It was the ultimate compliment,” McCarthy says. “In our business, as in any business, I think if you appreciate anything you appreciate more the respect of your peers. So for him to do that and entrust me with her really meant a lot to me.”
Grand Slam Smile will return to Del Mar Sunday when she runs in the $100,000 Osunitas Stakes. She’s run three times at the seaside oval, notching two seconds and a third in the G3 Torrey Pines last summer. The Osunitas will be her second race since transferring to McCarthy’s barn. Her first race was a second-level allowance race at Los Alamitos last month and it could not have gone better.
“She’s a true racehorse,” McCarthy boasts. “The other day in that race at Los Alamitos she got hooked at the top of the lane and I was thinking maybe we’re going to be a little short. But when Billy (jockey William Antongeorgi) asked her she rebroke and just took off again. Those kind do that and it’s a privilege to have a filly like her. I hope I don’t blemish her record.”
Like her 2025 debut, Grand Slam Smile will be taking on open company and not her fellow Cal-breds.
“We had a couple of options,” McCarthy notes. “The Williams (owners Larry and Marianne) are coming into town this weekend and they’d really like to see her run so we’re going to give it a go. Our goal for this meet is the Solana Beach (mile on the turf for $150,000 purse).”
The Osunitas is Race 9 on today’s 11-race card. Probable post is 6 p.m.
Here’s the field from the rail with the jockeys and morning line odds: Nadette (Mike Smith, 6-1); Queen Maxima (Juan Hernandez, 7/2); Venganza (Mirco Demuro, 20-1); Omnipontat (Antonio Fresu, 15-1); Grand Slam Smile (William Antongeorgi, 12-1); Raw Ability (Vince Cheminaud, 12-1); Alpha Bella (Armando Ayuso, 10-1); Medoro (Umberto Rispoli, 3-1); Sunset Glory (Kazushi Kimura, 6-1); Quatro Y Vinte (Asa Espinoza, 20-1), and Lunar Impact (Hector I Berrios, 8-1).
REMEMBERING D. WAYNE LUKAS AND HIS TIME AT DEL MAR
Racing lost an icon last month when legendary trainer D. Wayne Lukas passed away at the age of 89. He revolutionized training racehorses and will forever be remembered for his interactions with the people he worked with and the fans who idolized him.
Lukas made an impact on nearly every race place in America, including Del Mar. He broke into Thoroughbred racing in 1977 and won his first stakes race at Del Mar with Effervescing in the 1978 Eddie Read Handicap. In 18 of the next 21 years, Lukas would win at least one stakes race every summer at the seaside oval, collecting 48 stakes victories at Del Mar, 10th best all-time among trainers at the seaside oval. His last stakes win at Del Mar came in 1999 with A Lady From Dixie in the Chula Vista Handicap, known these days as the G1 Clement Hirsch.
Name a stakes race from that era at Del Mar and Lukas probably won it. He captured the Del Mar Debutante nine times and the Rancho Bernardo six times. He won the Futurity, the Bing Crosby and the Oceanside multiple times before finally consolidating his operation to the Midwest and East Coast in the early 2000’s.
The horses he won with at Del Mar were a who’s who of racing. Great Lady M, Landaluce, Twilight Agenda and Sharp Cat. While he was winning Triple Crown races by the handful, he was collecting training titles at Del Mar, the first he shared with Mike Mitchell in 1982. He won back-to-back titles in 1987 and 1988 and shared his last title with Bill Spawr and Richard Mandella in 1990.
Lukas would make occasional visits to Del Mar during the 2000’s and if he didn’t actually physically make the trip out west, he still sent a horse or two every once in a while. At last fall’s Breeders’ Cup weekend at Del Mar he ran his final Triple Crown winner, Seize the Grey, in the Dirt Mile. Little did we know at the time that it would be the last West Coast venture for the bigger-than-life yet down-to-earth figure we all knew as ‘Coach.’
SAVORY SUNDAYS
New this summer at Del Mar - “Savory Sundays.” Every Sunday, starting today through closing weekend September 7, a popular local restaurant will be featured in the Plaza de Mexico. Today it will be Brandt Beef BBQ. Next week it will be Pizza Port. The Sunday of Pacific Classic weekend, the Pamplemousse will serve up duck tacos and kobe beef sliders. Beer and drink specials also will be available.
COOLING OUT: Both of trainer Phil D’Amato’s Saturday stakes winners came back in good order. He says Almendares, who won the Wickerr, will be pointed to the G2 Del Mar Mile on Pacific Classic Day (August 30). Thought Process, the impressive winner of the G2 San Clemente, will go next in the G1 Del Mar Oaks August 16…Here’s something you don’t see everyday. Jockey Kazushi Kimura rode in all 11 races Saturday. He finished with one win, two seconds and a third. Today the popular rider “only” has eight mounts…