Del Mar Paddock © Zoe Metz
DEL MAR DRIES OUT AS RACING RETURNS TO THE SEASIDE OVAL
Remember what it was like when you were a kid stuck in the house all day because of the rain? You couldn’t wait to get outside to play. That’s sort of what many of the horses at Del Mar were feeling like this morning after the track was closed on Friday due to the rains. So there was plenty of activity in the backside barn area Saturday.
Many horses were tack walking through the shed rows while others went out on the track where jogging was allowed.
“For circulation purposes, it’s very important that they move around because they’re big,” trainer John Shirreffs explains. “Actually the frog (in a horse’s hoof) helps pump the blood so movement is very important for horses. That’s why when they’re outside they’re always moving, grazing, moving, grazing.”
Without that exercise horses don’t drink as much water and that can lead to a whole new set of problems.
“If they get dehydrated then you have trouble with colic,” Shirreffs points out. “Also, if they don’t get enough exercise you have to be careful how much you feed them or else they’ll come out and tie-up or kick or do something really stupid and hurt themselves.
“They’re not like a little pet which you can let run around the yard,” Shirreffs adds. “They require structured exercise.”
The rain started falling in Del Mar Thursday night and lasted into Friday morning. Large puddles of water left from last weekend’s rains were still around this morning but no flooding of the stalls was reported.
After a day of racing today, exclusively on the dirt, things will get back to normal Sunday with the return of regular training hours, paddock schooling and turf racing including Sunday’s feature the G3 Red Carpet.
Racing Secretary David Jerkens says they have worked diligently in the racing office to make-up those races washed out by cancellations last Saturday and Friday.
“We used four races from Friday on Saturday,” Jerkens notes. “The rest of the races are extras for Sunday. Then we’ll fill a Monday card. The plan is for nine races on Monday.”
They drew entries for Sunday and Monday on Thursday. Jerkens pieced together a Monday card with extras some of which were grass races that were canceled on Friday.
“It’s not a great predicament to be in, putting together a card like Monday’s without a program of races in the condition book,” Jerkens states. “We’re just making up the day, hoping to utilize the Friday races that were canceled. But in order to run Saturday, all dirt, we had to use half of the (Friday’s) card.”
Seven of the races from last Saturday’s cancelled nine-race card were made up Sunday and throughout this weekend, including the Desi Arnaz Stakes.
QUICK TURNAROUND LANDS NEVADA BEACH IN G3 NATIVE DIVER
Two weekends of graded stakes racing at Del Mar begins Saturday with the 48th running of the G3 Native Diver. Five are entered in the 1 1/8 mile race on the main track. Two of them are 3-year-olds including Nevada Beach.
The son of Omaha Beach ran in the Breeders’ Cup Classic three weeks ago. He finished a disappointing seventh, 11 ¾ lengths behind the winner Forever Young. He was never a threat to win.
“It wasn’t the result we wanted,” trainer Bob Baffert said after the race. “He got behind runners and he just didn’t take off. It was a tough race, he was in steep but we took a crack at it.”
There are no Forever Youngs, Sierra Leones or Fierceness’ in Saturday’s race. Baffert is looking for a performance like he got in late September when Nevada Beach won the G1 Goodwood at Santa Anita, a ‘Win and You’re In’ for the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Before the Classic, Nevada Beach had done little wrong. He broke his maiden at first asking in April and went straight into stakes company, running second to stablemate and 2024 Del Mar Futurity winner Gaming in the $100,000 Affirmed. He followed that with a 4 ¼ length victory in the Los Alamitos Derby followed by a brief freshening and then his win in the Goodwood.
Nevada Beach is owned Mike Pegram, Karl Watson and Paul Weitman, longtime clients of Baffert.
“They love the action,” Baffert contends. “That’s why Nevada Beach is running in the Native Diver.”
The Native Diver is hardly void of other competition. Indispensable is back from Kentucky where he ran third in the G3 Ack Ack at Churchill Downs. Before that race, the 4-year-old son of Constitution ran fourth in the G1 Pacific Classic at Del Mar.
The other 3-year-old in the race Westwood ran third in the G1 Santa Anita Derby back in April and followed with a fourth place finish behind Nevada Beach in the Affirmed, both while still being a maiden. When trainer John Shirreffs put him back in a Maiden Special Weight he won by 3 ¼ lengths at Del Mar this past summer.
“He has talent and he’s got a beautiful stride,” Shirreffs notes of Westwood. “He’s very competitive in the race. When you look at him he’s long, a good underline and a big stride. Class is never a factor with him. I think under the right circumstances and if he gets a good trip I think he’ll run very well.”
British Isles is a Justify gelding who is stepping up off a win in a second level allowance race at Santa Anita last month. He’s switching from turf to dirt. 18 of his 21 lifetime starts have come on the grass.
Clouseau rounds out the field. He’s a Cal-bred son of Distorted Humor from the George Papaprodromou barn. He ran fourth last out, 1 ¾ lengths behind Westwood in an entry level allowance race at Del Mar on Breeders’ Cup Friday.
The Native Diver is named after the Hall of Famer who raced in the 1960s. It’s Race 8 on the Saturday card. Probable post is 4 p.m.
Here’s the field from the rail out with the jockeys and morning line odds: Indispensable (Hector I. Berrios, 3-1); Westwood (Umberto Rispoli, 6-1); Nevada Beach (Juan Hernandez, 3/5); British Isles (Diego Herrera, 8-1), and Clouseau (Kyle Frey, 12-1).
DEMURO REIGNS OVER JOCKEY STANDINGS THROUGH WEEK THREE
When jockey Mirco Demuro first arrived in California this past summer he knew from a previous visit that it was going to be tough breaking into the Southern California jockey colony.
“I hope to find good horses and get going again,” Demuro said at the time.
After a full summer meet at Del Mar, the autumn meet at Santa Anita and now three weeks of the Bing Crosby Season it’s safe to say the Italian rider has settled in nicely and last week he made himself at home atop the jockey standings for a second straight week.
Demuro leads the pack with 10 victories to Antonio Fresu’s eight and Umberto Rispoli’s seven. He’s winning at a remarkable 45-percent clip and has been in the money 50-percent of his rides.
Fresu’s two wins over last week’s abbreviated schedule of racing included a victory aboard Revera in the $100,000 Desi Arnaz Stakes on Sunday, his first stakes win of the meet.
Rounding out the Top Ten in the jockey standings are Hector I. Berrios and Armando Ayuso with six wins; the defending champion Juan Hernandez, Edwin Maldonado and Tiago Pereira have five; and Flavien Prat, Irad Ortiz, Jr. and Kazushi Kimura have three each.
In the trainer standings John Sadler and George Papaprodromou are tied at the top with six wins. Sadler’s lone win last week was the victory in the Desi Arnaz with Revera, his second stakes win of the meet not including his Breeders’ Cup win with Super Corredora in the Juvenile Fillies.
Sadler’s horses have finished in the money 71 percent of the time.
Doug O’Neill is next in the trainer’s standings with five wins followed by Steve Knapp with four. Bob Baffert, Leonard Powell and Steven Miyadi are next with three wins each and eight trainers round out the Top Ten with two wins.
Fourteen victories has been the magic number needed to win the trainer’s title the past two years. Mark Glatt did it last year with 14 wins and Philip D’Amato did it in 2024 with 14 so this year’s group has a long way to go and two weeks to do it in.
The average field size for the Bing Crosby Season remains among the highest in the country at 7.54. Turf fields are averaging 7.74 a race, down a bit from last year no thanks to the weather. By the time we return to turf racing on Sunday it will have been nine days between starts on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course.
HANDICAPPING SEMINARS ON TAP SATURDAY, SUNDAY AT DEL MAR
Del Mar will once again present free handicapping seminars for its fans for the upcoming Saturday and Sunday race cards.
The seminars are held on the patio of the Hacienda Room adjacent to the large fountain in the Plaza de Mexico. They begin at 11:30 a.m. and run for approximately 30 minutes ahead of the first post at 12:30 p.m.
Saturday’s seminar, which is hosted by Frank Scatoni, will feature local horseplayer John Murphy. The Sunday session, led by Dan Smith, will have owner, handicapper, and radio show host Jon Lindo.
COOLING OUT: Jockey Tiago Pereira pulled off a hat trick on Sunday winning three races on the card. He won Race 1 with trainer Peter Eurton’s Fire Mountain; Race 3 with trainer Michael McCarthy’s Smoovin Saturday and Race 7 with Berlin Wall from the Steve Knapp barn…Del Mar has a couple of carryovers heading into Saturday. No one hit the Pick 6 last Sunday so there’s a carryover of $51,879.47. There’s also a carryover for the Super High 5 of $23,912.05…Rancho San Miguel has added another popular stallion to its mix. Just weeks after acquiring Collected, Eight Rings has relocated to the farm as part of the Harris Farms dispersal. The son of Empire Maker will stand for $6,000 in 2026…62 horses put in official works on Thursday before the track was sealed ahead of Friday’s rains. Notable works: Dirt – Medoro (4f, :48.00); Stay Hot (4f, :49.00) and Test Score (4f, :50.40). The main track was closed Friday and only open to joggers on Saturday. Regular training hours will resume Sunday. There will also be turf works on Sunday but only for horses preparing for the upcoming Fall Festival stakes races next week.