FanDuel Racing Turf Festival © Benoit Photo
FANDUEL RACING FALL TURF FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS FINAL WEEKEND
Racing at Del Mar in 2025 is about to go out with a bang. Next weekend’s racing features the FanDuel Racing Fall Turf Festival. Seven stakes races, six of them graded, spread out over three days. And throw in a graded dirt stakes for good measure.
It begins with the Hollywood Turf Cup on Friday. A mile and a half test for 3-year-olds and up.
Saturday’s card will have an early post time of 11:30 a.m. It will feature three graded stakes: The G2 Seabiscuit, the G3 Jimmy Durante and the G1 Hollywood Derby.
The Seabiscuit is for 3-year-olds and up going a mile and a sixteenth. It goes off as Race 5 on the 11-race card. Nine horses are entered. Last year’s winner was Mi Hermano Ramon out of trainer Mark Glatt’s barn.
The Jimmy Durante is for 2-year-old fillies going one mile on, appropriately, the Jimmy Durante Turf Course. It will be Race 7. Eleven are entered including a filly from trainer Chad Brown’s barn. Last year’s winner was Well Then, an impressive looking filly by War of Will, who set the pace in Sunday’s G3 Red Carpet before fading to fifth.
The last of the Saturday stakes action is the G1 Hollywood Derby, a mile and an eighth grass test for 3-year-olds. It will be Race 9. Eight colts and one gelding are slated to run. Last year’s race was won by Formidable Man, who went on to run second in this year’s Breeders’ Cup Mile.
Four races into the Fanduel Racing Fall Turf Festival and we’re just getting started. On Sunday there are four more stakes races, three of them graded, all but one on the turf.
The $100,000 Stormy Liberal is the only stakes race in the Festival without graded status. This will be the fourth running of the turf sprint. Trainer Phil D’Amato won the first three runnings, last year with Unconquerable Keen, who won it the year before. He’s one of 17 horses nominated for the 5-furlong dash on the grass.
The G3 Cecil B. DeMille will feature top juvenile grass runners going one mile. Twelve colts, one gelding, a roan and a filly were nominated for the race though the filly, Sweet Little Lila from the Brittany Russell barn is expected to run in the Jimmy Durante on Saturday. Trainer John Sadler has three colts nominated including Hey Nay Nay, winner of this summer’s G3 Del Mar Juvenile Turf.
The lone graded stakes race on the dirt next weekend is the G3 Bayakoa for fillies and mares going one mile. Ten were nominated including defending champion Hope Road from the Bob Baffert barn.
The marquee race on a star-studded weekend of racing is the G1 Matriarch, a race loaded with top-level fillies and mares going one mile on the turf. Several top barns from around the country typically show interest in the Matriarch and this year is no exception. There were 15 nominees for the race won last year by trainer George Weaver’s Sacred Wish.
Entries for Sunday’s races will be drawn on Wednesday.
G2 HOLLYWOOD TURF CUP LAUNCHES FALL TURF FESTIVAL FRIDAY
The FanDuel Racing Fall Turf Festival at Del Mar kicks off Friday with the 43rd running of the G2 Hollywood Turf Cup, a mile and a half marathon on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course.
The race has a rich history dating back to its days at Hollywood Park. The list of past winners is a who’s who of marathon grass racing: John Henry, Great Communicator, Bien Bien, Itsallgreektome and Fraise to name a few.
The Turf Cup has run 11 times at Del Mar and the list of winners include Finnegans Wake, The Pizza Man and Arklow.
This year nine horses are expected to go to the post, led by last year’s winner Truly Quality. The 5-year-old son of Quality Road hasn’t run since finishing a close fourth behind Gold Phoenix in this summer’s G2 Del Mar Handicap.
“He had a couple of very minor hiccups,” trainer Jonathan Thomas explains. “We needed to slow down. He’s had a really good month and a half but he’s definitely under prepared.
“He’s prepared enough,” Thomas adds, “but if I had a hard earned $20 bill in my pocket, I would tell anyone to probably save it. He’s training very well but a mile and a half off an extended break. You never know. He’s got a lot of base-fitness and sometimes those horses surprise us.”
Truly Quality beat Balnikhov and Nineeleventurbo in last year’s race and those two are back again for another shot. Nineeleventurbo, an 8-year-old son of More Than Ready is returning from a trip to Kentucky where he ran in three races, two at Kentucky Downs and one at Keeneland. He’s been running against allowance company but has tested the graded stakes waters in the past.
Balnikhov comes into the Turf Cup off of an allowance win at Del Mar on opening weekend. It was his first win since the G3 Dinner Party at Pimlico in May of 2024 and it was his first race outside of stakes company since arriving in the U.S. in early 2022, a span of 27 races.
“A little class relief, a confidence booster,” trainer Phil D’Amato notes, “and he likes this turf course. All those things played into his win.”
The second and third place finishers behind Balnikhov in the allowance race at Santa Anita are also entered in the Hollywood Turf Cup. Flashiest has been running in allowance races since late last year. Reiquist went back to Keeneland last month and tried the G2 Sycamore, finishing ninth. Otherwise, he’s been running in allowance races on the West Coast.
Mondego, an English-bred gelding from the Michael McCarthy barn, has run in Grade II’s in his last two races. He finished fifth in the Del Mar Handicap, missing by just 1 ¼ lengths. Then he ran fourth in the G2 John Henry at Santa Anita in September.
The G2 Hollywood Turf Cup is the first of the seven stakes races that make up the FanDuel Racing Fall Turf Festival. It’s Race 7 on the nine-race Friday card. Probable post time is 3:30 p.m.
Here’s the field from the rail out with the jockeys: Balladeer (Edwin Maldonado); Flashiest (Armando Ayuso); Rastaman Vibe (Juan Hernandez); Nineeleventurbo (Antonio Fresu); Grogu (Diego Herrera); Reiquist (Hector I. Berrios); Truly Quality (Mirco Demuro); Balnikhov (Umberto Rispoli), and Mondego (Kazushi Kimura).
FANDUEL RACING FALL TURF FESTIVAL LURES SHIPPERS FROM TOP BARNS
The highly anticipated FanDuel Racing Fall Turf Festival is set for next weekend, promising to bring a thrilling close to the 12th Bing Crosby Season at Del Mar. Seven turf races spread out over the final weekend of the meet are expected to attract top grass horses from across the country.
Several have already arrived at the seaside oval while others are expected to ship in this week. Trainer Graham Motion, who is based at Fair Hill in Maryland, brought a string of horses out for the Breeders’ Cup and then left a few of them at Del Mar to prepare for the Fall Turf Festival.
“Test Score is going to run in the (G1) Hollywood Derby,” Alice Clapham, Motion’s assistant trainer says. “Proton will run in the (G3) Cecil B. DeMille.”
Motion’s G2 Yellow Ribbon winner Heredia arrived at Del Mar on Wednesday. She’s being pointed to the G1 Matriarch on closing day, November 30.
There are other out-of-town trainers, like Motion, who have become regulars to the Fall Turf Festival
“Chad Brown’s going to send a few,” Del Mar Racing Secretary David Jerkens says.
Brown has won a fair share of Fall Turf Festival races over the years. This year he’s bringing Just Aloof for the G3 Jimmy Durante and Salamis for the G1 Hollywood Derby, both running on Saturday. He also has Segesta nominated for the Matriarch.
Trainer Michael Stidham has entered one of the top 3-year-olds in Canada, Tom’s Magic, in the Derby and even trainer Todd Pletcher is getting in on the fun, sending Noble Confessor out from his base in New York for the Hollywood Derby.
Other trainers eyeing the Fall Turf Festival from afar are Miguel Clement, who has Ozara and Breath Away nominated for the Matriarch. Brittany Russell, another top Maryland trainer, is bringing her 2-year-old filly Sweet Little Lila for the G3 Jimmy Durante; William Walden is considering Aussie Girl for the Matriarch as is trainer Saffie Joseph with his filly In Our Time; And Wesley Ward is thinking of running No Nay Hudson in the Stormy Liberal.
Jonathan Thomas, who has been keeping a string of horses in California throughout the year, is hoping to duplicate his run in last year’s Fall Turf Festival when he came out West from his base in Kentucky and won three races.
“Last year everything clicked so perfectly,” Thomas recalls. “Literally every breeze, every gallop, every school, every race. This year’s been a different story so we’ll do the best we can.”
As if to serve notice, Thomas won Sunday’s G3 Red Carpet for the second year in a row with Mrs. Astor. He has Truly Quality running in Friday’s G2 Hollywood Turf Cup.
THANKSGIVING COMES TO THE BACKSIDE STABLE AREA AT DEL MAR
The Backside Thanksgiving Meal is back again this year, serving a traditional Thanksgiving dinner to all of the hardworking folks spending their Thanksgiving Day at Del Mar this year. Grooms, hot walkers, and others working the backside will be fed turkey with all the trimmings from 3 until 5 p.m.
“It will be served at the North Horse Arena,” says Del Mar’s Sue Walls. “We have added a heated tent this year since it gets so cold back there. So it will be a nice enclosed area where we have set up the buffet.”
The meal will also be provided to employees of Del Mar who happen to be working on Thanksgiving, not just horsemen and women.
“We had about 60 people last year,” Walls adds. “That’s what we’re planning on this year.”
Of course what is Thanksgiving without the leftovers? Another Thanksgiving meal will be served the day after Thanksgiving as part of the Backside Meal Program that feeds backside workers on race days. They generally get about one-hundred takers for the race day meal. Del Mar is the only track in the country with such a program.
COOLING OUT: Mrs. Astor came out of her repeat victory in the G3 Red Carpet Sunday in good order. Trainer Jonathan Thomas says he’s unsure of their next move with her but will ship her up to Santa Anita in a week…Umberto Rispoli jumped into first place in the Del Mar jockey standings with three victories on Sunday. He won with My Kat in Race 4; was on board Mrs. Astor in her G3 Red Carpet win in Race 7 and scored again in Race 9 with Wildfire Princess. Heading into Monday’s racing Rispoli has 11 wins, one better than Mirco Demuro and Antonio Fresu…The long-range weather forecast for next weekend’s FanDuel Racing Fall Turf Festival looks good for Friday and Saturday but there’s a chance of rain on Sunday… Fog prevented any official workouts during the early sessions this morning but it cleared out by 8 o’clock. Notable works on Monday: Dirt – Motorious (3f, :35.60); Tamara (4f, :47.00) and Speedy Wilson (5f, 1:02.00).