Drefong © Benoit Photo
Baoma Corporation’s classy Drefong, who earned an Eclipse Award as the champion sprinter of 2016 after winning the Breeders’ Cup Sprint last November, will make his 2017 debut Saturday when he heads a line-up of eleven speedsters in the 72nd running of the Grade I $300,000 Bing Crosby Stakes at Del Mar.
The Crosby Stakes is a “Win and You’re In” race with the winner receiving an automatic berth in the $1.5 million Twin Spires Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Del Mar Saturday Nov. 4.
After going unplaced in his career debut as a two-year-old in October of 2015, Drefong, a son of Gio Ponti has reeled off five straight wins, including the Grade I King’s Bishop at Saratoga and then the title-clinching BC Sprint which he led from wire-to-wire. Mike Smith has the call from trainer Bob Baffert.
Drefong figures to be a solid favorite. However, his task doesn’t figure to be an easy one since he will facing some accomplished and successful sprinters. His foes include Denman’s Call, winner of the Grade I Triple Bend; St. Joe Bay, hero of the Palos Verdes and Midnight Lute stakes last winter; the comebacking Big Macher, who won the 2014 Crosby; Roy H., victorious in the True North at Belmont for his third win in a row; Solid Wager, who deadheated with St. Joe Bay in the Midnight Lute; stretch-running Kobe’s Back and the consistent Moe Candy.
Rounding out the line-up are Ransom the Moon, winner of the Kona Gold, the vastly-improved Magic Taste, and Coastline, who has been a factor in sprint stakes this year.
The Bing Crosby is part of a Saturday stakes doubleheader which includes the $150,000 California Dreamin Stakes for California-bred older horses at a mile and one-sixteenth on the grass. Entrants are My Italian Babbo, G.G. Ryder, Dr. Troutman, Soi Phet, Incredible Luck and He Will.
Post time for the first of ten races Saturday will be 2 p.m.