DEL MAR \u2014 Now it can be told. Privately, the jockey aboard Knightsbridge in the Pacific Classic on Saturday wondered if his horse could handle a 1-1\/4-mile race like this. And that was before the doubt was compounded by a taxing pace in the 5-year-old\u2019s first test at the distance.<\/p>\n
The worry vanished somewhere around the top of the Del Mar homestretch.<\/p>\n
After clicking off fast quarter-mile fractions in a front-running duel with top local contender Full Serrano, heavy favorite Knightsbridge shook off the competition and began to pull away.<\/p>\n
Knightsbridge and Alvarado went on to win California\u2019s only annual $1 million race by 6-1\/4 lengths over Original Sin and Juan Hernandez, with Fully Serrano and Joel Rosario hanging on for third.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout the quarter pole, I picked up my reins and smooched at him, and I felt him quicken a little bit. I knew that would be enough,\u201d Alvarado said. \u201cIt (was) just a good feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winning bettors on the 11-horse race were rewarded with a $4.20 payoff per $2.<\/p>\n
The victory, his eighth in12 career starts, didn\u2019t match Knightsbridge\u2019s margin (10-1\/4 lengths) in his breakthrough win in the 1-1\/8-mile Monmouth Cup in New Jersey last month and won\u2019t receive a speed rating as glittering as that race (122 on the Beyer-figure scale). But what he did Saturday confirmed that Knightsbridge deserves to be talked about as a contender for the Breeders\u2019 Cup Classic at Keeneland on Oct. 31, along with the handful of star older horses led by Sovereignty, that other horse trained by Hall of Famer Bill Mott for owner Godolphin.<\/p>\n
In the winner\u2019s circle, someone asked Alvarado, who also rides 2025 Kentucky Derby winner and Horse of the Year Sovereignty: \u201cCan you ride two horses in the (Breeders\u2019 Cup) Classic?\u201d<\/p>\n
Alvarado replied brightly: \u201cI wish I can!\u201d<\/p>\n
Mott didn\u2019t travel to Del Mar, but watched the Pacific Classic on TV, and later said from New York that he too had been concerned that Knightsbridge was having to go too fast early in the race to maintain his preferred forward position.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was impressive,\u201d Mott said. \u201cI thought maybe they were going a little too fast down the backside. But, gosh, he had something to finish with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Dan Pride, a Godolphin executive in attendance: \u201cToday, he showed what kind of horse he is.\u201d<\/p>\n
The final time for 1-1\/4 miles was 2:02.28, not unusually quick for the Pacific Classic. But the quarter-mile splits of 23.17, 45.94, 1:10.02 and 1:35.66 were a second or more stronger than average for the event.<\/p>\n
Knightsbridge, who started from the far-outside post 11, and Full Serrano, sent off at 9-1 odds from post 10, battled side by side for the first mile.<\/p>\n
Full Serrano trainer John Sadler said he was pleased with his 7-year-old\u2019s performance and looked forward to a chance to repeat his 2024 victory in the Breeders\u2019 Cup Dirt Mile. Sadler saluted Knightsbridge.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s obviously a top-class horse,\u201d Sadler said. \u201cHe kind of stood out (in handicapping the race), and he ran like it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Original Sin rallied from last to finish second at 21-1 odds, and the race\u2019s lone filly Om N Joy and rider Kent Desormeaux came from next-to-last to be fourth at 23-1.<\/p>\n
One-time Dubai World Cup winner Hit Show and Florent Geroux took fifth as the public\u2019s 4-1 second choice. The disappointments were the seemingly well-primed Navajo Warrior and Micah Husbands (ninth) and the Tokyo Derby-winning 3-year-old Finger and Keita Tosaki (11th).<\/p>\n
It was the second consecutive Pacific Classic, and fourth overall in 36 runnings, to be won by a horse shipped in from out of state.<\/p>\n
Back in New York, Alvarado had spoken in confident tones to reporters about the distance capability of Knightsbridge, a son of Nyquist who had never raced around two turns before the Monmouth race.<\/p>\n
He admitted after Saturday\u2019s race: \u201cI always thought he was a good miler. But I remember Mr. Mott telling me, \u2018I think he can go two turns.\u2019 He decided to stretch him out to two turns. That\u2019s why he\u2019s in the Hall of Fame and not me.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a sticky, 80-degree afternoon with only a light breeze coming from the Pacific Ocean, the Pacific Classic was Alvarado\u2019s second Grade I victory at Del Mar on Saturday, following one by Tam Tam ($7.40) in the Del Mar Oaks. The other stakes on the undercard were won by two Phil D\u2019Amato-trained, Umberto Rispoli-ridden horses, King of Gosford ($12.40) in the Grade II Del Mar Mile and Sorrento Sky ($16) in the Grade III Green Flash Handicap turf sprint.<\/p>\n
Amid those mild upsets, Knightsbridge and Alvarado delivered 1-1\/4 miles of hoped-for brilliance. But only after making it interesting with a mile of doubt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DEL MAR \u2014 Now it can be told. Privately, the jockey aboard Knightsbridge in the Pacific Classic on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[8506,74,76,75,127],"class_list":["post-440983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-horse-racing","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\/440983","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=440983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}