DEL MAR LEADERS
Through Monday
Jockeys / Wins
Juan Hernandez / 41
Antonio Fresu / 35
Hector Berrios / 23
Umberto Rispoli / 20
Kazushi Kimura / 20
Armando Ayuso / 15
Trainers / Wins
Bob Baffert / 20
Mark Glatt / 16
Phil D’Amato / 16
Peter Miller / 14
John Sadler / 13
Michael McCarthy / 12
UPCOMING STAKES
DEL MAR
Friday
• $100,000 I’m Smokin Stakes, California-bred 2-year-olds, 5½ furlongs
Saturday
• $300,000, Grade I Del Mar Debutante, 2-year-old fillies, 7 furlongs
• $250,000, Grade II John C. Mabee Stakes, fillies and mares, 3-year-olds and up, 1⅛ miles on turf
Sunday
• $300,000, Grade I Del Mar Futurity, 2-year-olds, 7 furlongs
• $100,000, Grade III Del Mar Juvenile Turf, 2-year-olds, 1 mile on turf
• $100,000 Del Mar Juvenile Fillies Turf, 2-year-old fillies, 1 mile on turf
LOS ALAMITOS
Saturday
• $250,000, Grade II Golden State Derby, 3-year-old quarter horses, 400 yards
DOWN THE STRETCH
• Fierceness’ 3¼-length victory over Journalism in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Saturday lifted the 4-year-old to No. 2 in the Longines-sponsored rankings of Breeders’ Cup Classic contenders (where he was No. 7 last week) and the National Thoroughbred Racing Association’s overall rankings (up from No. 9). Three-year-old Sovereignty remained No. 1 in both, while 3-year-old Journalism dropped two slots to No. 5 in the Classic poll and one spot to No. 6 in the NTRA poll. After Fierceness’ mild, 8-5 upset and Antiquarian’s $28 surprise in the Jockey Club Gold Cup at Saratoga on Sunday, the Classic contenders top 10 has Sierra Leone third, Mindframe fourth, Forever Young sixth, Nysos seventh, Baeza and Antiquarian tied for eighth, and Highland Falls 10th. The $7 million, Grade I Breeders’ Cup Classic is Nov. 1, the second day of the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar.
• Five of the six stakes in Del Mar’s closing week spotlight 2-year-olds. The other is the John C. Mabee Stakes for fillies and mares on turf, which drew a competitive field Saturday. Hang the Moon (Kazushi Kimura riding) defends her $43 win in the Mabee last year against Osunitas Stakes winner Medoro (Umberto Rispoli), improving Baltic Fire (Serafin Carmona), Yellow Ribbon runnerup Public Assembly (Antonio Fresu), Graham Motion-trained shipper Gimme a Nother (Juan Hernandez) and four others.
• Los Alamitos is next on the Southern California thoroughbred calendar, holding the second of its three short daytime meets Sept. 12-21, with Friday-Saturday-Sunday racing beginning at 1 p.m.
• Bill Christine, the former Los Angeles Times reporter who was one of the nation’s most-read turf writers in the 1980s and 1990s, died at age 87 on Aug. 25. Christine began his career in his native Illinois and went on to cover the Pirates for papers in Pittsburgh before turning his attention to racing. He wrote books about baseball Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente and racing Hall of Fame jockey Bill Hartack.
• The death of the claiming-level 3-year-old gelding General Jackson, from an injury in last Saturday’s second race, was the second in a Del Mar race this summer. That’s one more than last year but two fewer than the average for 2021-24. It also was the 21st horse death at Santa Anita, Los Alamitos and Del Mar in racing and training, from musculoskeletal and other causes, since the start of the California racing year Dec. 26. According to records on the California Horse Racing Board website, that’s one more death than occurred in the same period last year, but fewer than the average of 24½ for the past four years.
• English jockey Ryan Moore is expected to miss the rest of 2025 because of a stress fracture in his right femur. It’s a loss for the Breeders’ Cup, at which Moore, 41, has ridden seven winners in the past three years and twice earned the Bill Shoemaker Award as the event’s outstanding jockey.
• New York racetracks began penny breakage at the start of September, giving bettors higher payoffs than they got under the state’s recent nickel breakage in which odds were rounded down to the nearest 5-cent increment. In the first race at Saratoga on Monday, winner Oscar’s Hope was listed with odds of $0.68 to $1 dollar instead of $0.65, and paid $3.36 instead of $3.30. California still has less fan-friendly dime breakage, rounding down to the nearest 10-cent increment.
— Kevin Modesti
Originally Published:
