DEL MAR \u2014 For Florida-based trainer Saffie Joseph Jr., Saturday\u2019s win by Eunomia in the Grade I Clement L. Hirsch Stakes might have doubled as a reconnaissance mission.<\/p>\n
Earlier Saturday, Joseph\u2019s Forged Steel was listed by Del Mar\u2019s racing office as one of nine \u201cearly Pacific Classic possibles.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the day ended with jockey Micah Husbands and 12-1 longshot Eunomia holding off a stretch surge by Om N Joy (Kent Desormeaux) to win the $400,000 Hirsch Stakes for older fillies and mares by a half-length and gain the Joseph team an automatic berth in the $4 million Breeders\u2019 Cup Distaff at Keeneland in October.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t a great race for a Grade I event.<\/p>\n
Defending champion and 3-2 favorite Seismic Beauty stalked early leader Simply Joking in a slow pace and was still in a challenging position for the lead on the far turn when she dramatically slowed and finished eighth in the field of nine.<\/p>\n
Simply Joking (Emisael Jaramillo) faded in the stretch and finished third. Second favorite Majestic Oops (Joel Rosario) moved too late and settled for fourth.<\/p>\n
The winner\u2019s time of 1 minute, 44.10 seconds was more than four seconds off the track record for 1 1\/16-miles on the dirt.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore the race, Saffie just told me to find a good spot and make her comfortable,\u201d said Husbands of his Del Mar debut. \u201cShe did just that. I could tell they weren\u2019t going that fast for these types of horses. So, I was comfortable with her all the way around. She gave me a good kick and we got it done.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIdeally, I wanted Eunomia to sit just behind the frontrunners,\u201d said Joseph. \u201cBut she was a bit keen. I told Micah she doesn\u2019t like to fight you, so he didn\u2019t do that and let her settle into a good rhythm where she got comfortable and we got the first run on them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Classic taking shape<\/p>\n
Topping the list of nine early possible entrants for the Aug. 22 Pacific Classic is Nysos, the Bob Baffert-trained son of Nyquist who won the recent Grade I Met Mile at Saratoga and has three wins in as many starts at Del Mar, including last year\u2019s Breeders\u2019 Cup Dirt Mile.<\/p>\n
Other candidates for the Aug. 22, 36th edition of $1 million Grade I feature of the summer meeting are:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Knightsbridge: After running second to Nysos in the Met Mile, the son of Nyquist recently won the Grade III\u00a0 Monmouth Cup by 10\u00bc lengths with a 2026-best 122 Beyer Speed Figure. Trainer Bill Mott has him stabled at Saratoga.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Malarchuk: A third son of Nyquist mentioned as a Pacific Classic hopeful, the Michael McCarty-trained 5-year-old was second to Forged Steel in the Grade II Hollywood Gold Cup on Memorial Day at Santa Anita.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0 Forged Steel: The son of Vekoma will head west from Florida to see if he can repeat his Hollywood Gold Cup triumph of earlier this year.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Full Serrano: Scratched from the Grade II San Diego Handicap due to a quarter crack in his foot, the John Sadler-trained 2024 Breeders\u2019 Cup Dirt Mile winner is feeling much better.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Finger: The Japanese-bred winner of the first two legs of Japan\u2019s Triple Crown (the Haneda Hai and the Tokyo Derby), the 3-year-old is skipping the third leg in favor of shipping to Del Mar for the Pacific Classic. He is scheduled to arrive in the U.S. on Aug. 14 and at Del Mar on Aug. 16<\/p>\n
\u2022 McVay: The 5-year-old son of Constitution is trained by Peter Eurton and ran third in the Hollywood Gold Cup.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The Goat: The Chilean-bred horse was fourth in the San Diego Handicap in his second U.S. start.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Subsanador: A 7-year-old from Richard Mandella\u2019s barn.<\/p>\n
Entries for the Pacific Classic will be drawn on Aug. 16.<\/p>\n
Cal-breds galore<\/p>\n
On the Whim led wire-to-wire, holding off favored Old Pal down the stretch to win Saturday\u2019s $150,000 California Dreamin\u2019 at 1 1\/16-miles on the turf for older Cal-bred horses.<\/p>\n
The win gave trainer Dean Pederson four California Dreamin\u2019 wins over the past five years.<\/p>\n
Jockey Tiago Pereira put On the Whim on the lead coming down the chute and was never headed, although the 6-year-old gelded son of Acclamation seldom led by more than a length. Juan Hernandez rallied Old Pal in the stretch, but came up a head shot. Eight-year-old None Above the Law finished third in his 50th career start.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was pressured the whole way, and I was just hoping the last 70 yards wouldn\u2019t take a toll on him,\u201d Pederson said of On the Whim. \u201cHe gutted it out and got the job done. I told Tiago to just put him in the race.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe horse next to me broke a little slow, which allowed me to get over and get a good spot on the rail,\u201d said Pereira. \u201cThat helped a lot. I know this horse. He ran hard all the way. And we were able to save ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seven 2-year-old fillies will go Sunday in the third Cal-breds stakes of the weekend, the 5\u00bd-furlong California Thoroughbred Breeders\u2019 Association Stakes on the main track. The race is the first of 10 juvenile stakes scheduled for the summer meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DEL MAR \u2014 For Florida-based trainer Saffie Joseph Jr., Saturday\u2019s win by Eunomia in the Grade I Clement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[8506,181,74,76,75,127],"class_list":["post-421381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-horse-racing","tag-latest-headlines","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}