Hope Road © Benoit Photo

HOPE ROAD ODDS-ON FAVORITE TO REPEAT IN G3 BAYAKOA SUNDAY

While all the attention will be focused on the grass racing this weekend, the final stakes race of the year at Del Mar is a graded stake on the dirt. The G3 Bayakoa, a one-mile feature for fillies and mares, is highlighted by Hope Road from the Bob Baffert barn. The daughter of Quality Road has made quite an impression in her races at Del Mar in the past. 

She won the Bayakoa last year, topping off a four-race win streak that included a five-length victory in the G3 Torrey Pines and a 5 ¼ length win in an entry-level allowance race both at Del Mar. Baffert tested her in deeper waters this year and she’s finished in the money in all four of her races in 2025, including a victory in the G1 Ballerina at Saratoga in August. 

Hope Road returned to Del Mar as the favorite in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint earlier this month and ran third behind stablemate Splendora and Vahva. 

“She ran well,“ Baffert contends. “She got a little tired there at the end but she’s come back and worked very well and I expect a big effort out of her today. She’s just a very good filly.”

Hope Road hopes to make it two-in-a-row in the Bayakoa. Eight other rivals hope to spoil her bid.

Simply Joking ships in from Kentucky and will make her second start for trainer Michael McCarthy. She started her career with two stakes wins at Fair Grounds before running a close second in the G2 Fantasy at Oaklawn Park. That earned her a shot in the Kentucky Oaks where she finished last of 13. After she moved to McCarthy’s barn this summer, she ran ninth of 10 in the G2 Raven Run at Keeneland in October.

“She’s a quality filly who has always trained well,” McCarthy notes. “Seemed like her reputation preceded her. Has trained nicely since she’s come back to the races. You have to draw a line through that race in Keeneland.”

Warming comes into the Bayakoa off a win in the G3 Autumn Miss at Santa Anita last month. She’s switching from turf to dirt for this race.

“There wasn’t a straight 3-year-old race here for her,” Alice Clapham, assistant to trainer Graham Motion explains. ”She breezed really well twice on the dirt here and they’ve been wanting to run her once on the dirt to see. Because she was here and she was doing well we thought we’d take a shot and see how she handles it.”

“There were very few options,” Clapham adds. “Either here or send her down to Florida or wait and run her (at Santa Anita) at Christmas. But this race came up well.”

You might remember Lemon Muffin. She was the late trainer D. Wayne Lukas’ Kentucky Oaks horse last year. Following her trainer’s death she was moved to Rodolphe Brisset’s barn for one race then moved out west into Paddy Gallagher’s stable where she will be making her first start for the veteran trainer. 

The Bayakoa is named after the Ron McAnally trainee who dominated the older mare division in 1989 and 1990, winning Eclipse Awards both years and eventually being inducted into the Hall of Fame. It’s Race 8 on Sunday’s nine-race, closing-day card. Probable post is 4 p.m.

Here’s the field from the rail out with the jockeys and the morning line odds: Deep Blue (Armando Ayuso, 20-1); Mahina (Umberto Rispoli, 12-1); Simply Joking (Flavien Prat, 6-1); Hope Road (Juan Hernandez, 3/5); Lemon Muffin (Mike Smith, 12-1); Precise Timing (Antonio Fresu, 20-1); Home Game (Kazushi Kimura, 12-1); Warming (John Velazquez, 8-1), and Jane Austen (Abel Lezcano, 15-1).

HEY NAY NAY LOOKS TO REBOUND IN G3 CECIL B. DEMILLE SUNDAY

The second of the pair of 2-year-old graded stakes in the FanDuel Racing Fall Turf Festival will be run Sunday. It’s the G3 Cecil B. DeMille, a one mile contest on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course. Seven juveniles will go to the gate with Hey Nay Nay the expected post time favorite.

The son of No Nay Never won his first three starts capped by a victory in the G3 Del Mar Juvenile Turf on closing day of the summer meet. He returned and ran a troubled 10th in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf. 

“He had the 13 post which is very impossible at Del Mar,” trainer John Sadler points out. “So he (jockey Joel Rosario) let him out there a little quick and got caught in a speed duel and that’s what hurt him. The horse on the inside was a sprinter and they got dueling and they both suffered for it.”

He’s since come back with two excellent works at Santa Anita, the last a bullet five-furlong breeze.

Hey Nay Nay’s chief competitor is expected to be Proton, the runner-up in the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance at Del Mar on Breeders’ Cup Friday. It was the first loss in a brief career that began with a maiden score first time out at Colonial Downs and then a win in the Laurel Futurity at Laurel Park in September.

“He ran well on the undercard of the Breeders’ Cup,” Alice Clapham, assistant to trainer Graham Motion, says. “Since he was here we decided to leave him and run him on Sunday.”

Trainer Leonard Powell has two colts in the race. Caro Buono started his career in France before moving stateside this summer. He made his U.S. debut in the Del Mar Juvenile Turf in September and ran fourth. He’s run twice since, including a fifth-place finish in the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance.

“He was pretty unlucky,” Powell points out. “He got squeezed in. But his first race at Del Mar was very good. He had a really bad post that day and he was able to close. With the smaller field he should be at the back of the pack early and should be able to close.”

Powell’s other runner is Unrivaled Time. The son of Not This Time broke his maiden by 4 ½ lengths at Santa Anita last out in the second race of his career. 

Trainer Doug O’Neill also brings a pair of juveniles over for the Cecil B. DeMille. Brigante ran twice at Del Mar this summer, finishing third in the Best Pal and then last in the Del Mar Futurity. That prompted a surface switch that paid off last out when he broke his maiden on opening day of the Bing Crosby Season.

“He’s getting more mature,” assistant trainer Leondro Mora states. “He’s run against tougher horses. He was asking for distance. He’s got a nice, long stride so it (the mile) should help him.”

The other O’Neill horse is Track Tiger, another last out maiden winner who appeared to relish the change of surface to grass. He’ll be stretching out around two turns for the first time on Sunday.

The Cecil B. DeMille, named after the legendary filmmaker, is Race 3 on Sunday’s nine-race card. Probable post is 1:30 p.m.

Here’s the field from the rail out with the jockeys and morning line odds: Proton (Juan Hernandez, 3-1); Brigante (Antonio Fresu, 8-1); Caro Buono (Armando Ayuso, 5-1); Unrivaled Time (Diego Herrera, 8-1); Iriseach (Umberto Rispoli, 8-1); Track Tiger (Mirco Demuro, 12-1), and Hey Nay Nay (Flavien Prat, 7/5).

JOCKEY, TRAINER FALL MEET TITLES ON THE LINE ON FINAL DAY

There’s a lot at stake on the final day of racing for the Bing Crosby Season at Del Mar. You have four stakes races, three of them graded, a huge Pick 5 carryover with a mandatory payout and both the jockey and trainer standings up for grabs. 

Umberto Rispoli leads the pack in the jockey standings with 15 victories as he hopes to secure his first riding title at Del Mar and his first since arriving in Southern California in 2020. Right behind him is Antonio Fresu with 14 and he’s followed by Mirco Demuro and his 12 wins. It would take a big day but it’s not out of the question for Armando Ayuso (11 wins) to steal the crown at the end of the day.

Rispoli has seven mounts on Sunday. Fresu has eight and Demuro four. Ayuso will ride six races.

Juan Hernandez, the riding champion over the past five meets at Del Mar, dating back to the fall of 2023, has eight wins this fall and with seven mounts on Sunday it would take a banner day to keep that streak alive.

The trainer standings are just as jumbled with George Papaprodromou reclaiming the lead Saturday with 10 victories, one better than John Sadler and two up on Doug O’Neill. Papaprodromou has never won a trainers title at Del Mar. Sadler has won three, the last one in the summer of 2013 and O’Neill has six, the last one coming in the summer of 2019.

Three other trainers, 2025 summer meet champion Bob Baffert, Phil D’Amato and Steve Knapp have six wins going into the final day but only D’Amato with his five entries on Sunday has a chance to win the title.

Last year’s fall meet trainers champion Mark Glatt has three wins this fall.

FROM BREEDERS’ CUP TO RAIN OUTS DEL MAR’S FALL MEET HAD IT ALL

It has been a fall to remember as the 12th Bing Crosby Season comes to an end Sunday. From Breeders’ Cup Championships to the Fall Turf Festival, Del Mar provided exciting, top level racing despite the obstacles that presented themselves in between.

Following a picture perfect weekend to start the meet, in which the Breeders’ Cup ran 14 championship races, Del Mar weathered two rainouts, a police action on the Freeway 5 that hindered shipping from Santa Anita and a federal mandated aircraft grounding that made for some anxious moments in the racing office.

Once all that was behind it, the seaside oval hosted the FanDuel Racing Turf Festival under brilliant skies on a well-preserved turf course.

“Like every meet you go in with a plan,” racing secretary David Jerkens says. “Unfortunately this fall meet had circumstances that impacted our plan. We had turf categories that filled well in week one and in the final week but in the middle of the meet were interrupted, not just from a racing stand point but from a training standpoint. 

“And not only here,” Jerkens continues. “Most of the horses that race at our meet are from Santa Anita so schedules got juggled. I don’t recall a fall meet where we ran so many dirt cards. It just seemed like we were constantly adjusting in the middle of the meet.”

When they hand out awards at the end of the meet, certainly one needs to go to Dennis Moore and John Beggin and their crews for their handling of the main and turf courses this fall.

“Both track superintendents, turf and dirt, did a phenomenal job to keep us racing,” Jerkens notes. “We had almost two inches of rain on a Saturday and we raced an all dirt card on Sunday and I thought the track performed beautifully.”

The double rain-outs on Saturday the 15th and then the following Friday the 21st were unprecedented for Del Mar, which had only experienced two cancellations in its 85-year history.

“This was the first meet where multiple weeks were impacted (by the weather) that I can recall,” Jerkens says. “The last few years we were essentially uninterrupted from training, racing, and turf works. It was business as usual and on schedule. I think we’re spoiled out here and I think we know that.”

Jerkens was thankful the incident up on the Freeway 5 involving an armed man and the grounding of the aircraft that transports horses across country didn’t affect Del Mar as bad as they could have. 

“Anybody that lives in Southern California knows you’re rolling the dice on the five (Freeway),” Jerkens says. “It’s a meet that relies on shippers not only for the day-to-day product from Santa Anita, but our stakes rely on horses to ship sometimes 3,000 miles away. Sometimes things happen that impact transportation and traveling.

“What we tried to do at this meet was communicate as much as possible ahead of time with the horsemen,” Jerkens adds. “Let them know what our plan was. The last thing you want to do is have people ship out here and make a last minute call that races are off the turf. We tried to get in front of it. Same with training hours as well. Logistics and horses getting here, it was challenging.”

Still, the racing office did a marvelous job filling the races. The average field sizes were 7.7, a tick up from last year. Despite it all, and the fact that there was one less day of racing at the meet, there were only six fewer races run in 2025 than last fall. 

COOLING OUT: Both of trainer Chad Brown’s stakes winners on Saturday came back in good order Sunday. Just Aloof won the G3 Jimmy Durante and Salamis rolled home to take the G1 Hollywood Derby. Assistant trainer Jose Hernandez said Sunday the horses were due to van back to Kentucky on Monday. Brown had indicated before the races that they would both get a freshening afterward…Call Sign Seven is doing well following his victory in the G2 Seabiscuit Saturday. Trainer Michael McCarthy says he may point him to the G3 San Gabriel on opening day at Santa Anita (12/26)…Call Sign Seven’s $139 payout was the biggest of the meet for a $2 win ticket. It also triggered a Pick 5 carryover of $329,773 for today. Projections say it could exceed $2 million and it’s a mandatory payout on Sunday…