DEL MAR \u2014 Gold Phoenix\u2019s bid for a fifth straight win in the Del Mar Handicap will be center stage on Saturday, though it is one of two Grade II stakes at the seaside oval sending winners directly to the 2026 Breeders\u2019 Cup at Keeneland.<\/p>\n
The 7-furlong Pat O\u2019Brien Stakes will send its winner to the Breeders\u2019 Cup Dirt Mile.<\/p>\n
Later, the winner of the Del Mar Handicap will land an automatic berth in the $5 million Breeders\u2019 Cup Turf.<\/p>\n
Given his record of four straight wins in the 1 3\/8-mile Del Mar Handicap turf marathon, Gold Phoenix is the logical performance favorite as well as the sentimental favorite with Del Mar fans to win the three-turn race on the grass.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis horse is very smart,\u201d said jockey Hector Berrios, who has been aboard Gold Phoenix for three of his last four wins. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t pull during the race. He\u2019s very professional.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he has drawn 10 challengers, including Test Score, who earlier this year won the Grade I Pegasus World Cup Turf at Gulfstream and ran second to Deterministic in the Grade I Manhattan at Saratoga on the Belmont Stakes undercard.<\/p>\n
However, the 4-year-old son of Lookin at Lucky, also finished sixth and eighth in two other Grade I stakes this year and will be starting at an eighth different track in as many races. But trainer Graham Motion shipped in horses \u2014 Warming (Grade II Yellow Ribbon) and Vronti (CTT and TOC Stakes) \u2014 that won stakes races earlier this meeting and will be seeking a second Del Mar stakes with perennial jockey champion Juan Hernandez.<\/p>\n
Atomic Age (Kazushi Kimura) is coming off an allowance win at Del Mar on Aug. 6.<\/p>\n
Atitlan (Umberto Rispoli) finished fourth in the Wickerr on July 19 at Del Mar in his first start in 11\u00bd months, an absence that followed the death of John Shirreffs, his trainer.<\/p>\n
\u201cMostly, the Wickerr was just us wanting to get a nice race into him to prepare for the Handicap,\u201d said trainer Richard Mandella. \u201cAtitlan wants the long distance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ten older, closely matched horses will be going in the Pat O\u2019Brien, a $250,000 run on the dirt.<\/p>\n
Big City Lights (Kimura) is the narrow favorite over March of Time (Hernandez), Stronghold (Antonio Fresu), Bartholdy (Tyler Baze) and Dr. Venkman (Umberto Rispoli).<\/p>\n
Dr. Venkman is the defending champion of the Pat O\u2019Brien and ran third in the Breeders\u2019 Cup Sprint last Nov. 1 at Del Mar. But the 6-year-old, gelded son of\u00a0 Ghostzapper ran fifth in the Grade I Bing Crosby last month at Del Mar in just his second start of the year.<\/p>\n
This could be a rematch between Dr. Venkman and Stronghold, who finished second in the 2025 O\u2019Brien. The 5-year-old son of Ghostzapper won the 2024 Santa Anita Derby and finished seventh in the Kentucky Derby. He finished sixth in the Bing Crosby.<\/p>\n
The slight morning-line favorite is Big City Lights, who will be looking for a third straight win under Kimura. But the 7-year-old son of Mr. Big has raced only twice in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a class horse,\u201d said Mandella. \u201cHe\u2019s always tough.\u201d<\/p>\n
The close second-favorite is March of Time. The 5-year-old son of Justify has made only five career starts for Baffert. But he has two wins and has never finished out of the money.<\/p>\n
Bartholdy (Tyler Baze) will be making his first start for trainer Jose D\u2019Angelo since being claimed for $100,000, the second-highest claim in Del Mar history.<\/p>\n
D\u2019Amato will have Iron Man Cal (Rosario) as well as Dr. Venkman in the O\u2019Brien. Iron Man Cal finished a close second in the 2024 Breeders\u2019 Cup Juvenile Turf at Del Mar and ran third behind Journalism and Shea Brennan in the San Diego Handicap here on July 18 in his first race on the dirt.<\/p>\n
Notable<\/p>\n
Fresu, who announced earlier this week that he will move east when Belmont Park reopens in September, was the only jockey with two wins Friday: Blame Ashley ($4.80 in the third) and Big \u00a0Blast ($18.80 in the eighth) to join Rosario (33), Hernandez (28) and Rispoli (20) as 20-race winners.<\/p>\n
Knightsbridge\u2019s win in the Pacific Classic has boosted him into third in the rankings for the Breeders\u2019 Cup Classic. Knightsbridge also gained seven spots in the National Thoroughbred Racing Association rankings to second behind stablemate Sovereignty. Forever Young, the 2025 Breeders\u2019 Cup Classic champion, is No. 2 on the Breeders\u2019 Cup list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DEL MAR \u2014 Gold Phoenix\u2019s bid for a fifth straight win in the Del Mar Handicap will be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[8506,181,74,76,75,127],"class_list":["post-446755","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\/446755","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=446755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}