Eight days ago, Mr. Disrespectful, a 6-year-old gelding, ran fifth in a field of six in a sprint race at Santa Anita.<\/p>\n
Saturday, the 36-1 longshot led wire-to-wire under jockey Tiago Pereira to win the seven-furlong, $100,000 The Chosen Vron Stakes at Del Mar by three-quarters of a length over Lovesick Blues.<\/p>\n
Before the race, trainer Craig Dollase instructed Pereira to keep Mr. Disrespectful \u201cnear the lead.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut he wanted to go,\u201d Pereira said of the son of Smiling Tiger. \u201cHe took the lead all on his own. I wasn\u2019t asking him. You saw it today; he\u2019s a nice horse. This was his own work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best thing you can do is not fight him,\u201d Dollase said of Mr. Disrespectful, who led by four lengths in the stretch. \u201cWe wanted to be close and Tiago took the initiative and went on with him. Nobody else wanted the lead. He opened up big fractions and won nicely.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew he was fit. I told (owner) Tony (Mojarro) before the race that I expected him to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Few others did. Mr. Disrespectful was the longest shot in the field of seven. Favorite and former champion Big City Lights finished fourth. Defending champion and second-favorite Man O Rose was fifth. Mr. Disrespectful paid $74.60.<\/p>\n
Betty Grable Stakes on Sunday<\/p>\n
Cal-Bred weekend concludes Sunday with the Betty Grable Stakes, a seven-furlong test for fillies and mares on the main track.<\/p>\n
And the nine-horse field has another fan favorite in defending race champion and recent millionaire Grand Slam Smile.<\/p>\n
Trained by Sean McCarthy, the 5-year-old daughter of Smiling Tiger has 13 career wins and recently eclipsed the $1 million mark in career earnings by winning the $100,000 California Distaff on the hillside turf course at Santa Anita.<\/p>\n
The two-time Cal-bred champion has finished in the money in 22 of her 24 career starts.<\/p>\n
Grand Slam Smile has spent most of 2026 racing on the turf and returns to the dirt to defend her Betty Grable title. But she will be breaking from the inside post.<\/p>\n
McCarthy said Grand Slam Smile is maturing with age and is expected to keep racing as a 6-year-old.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a little bit older now and she\u2019s settling down a little bit more,\u201d McCarthy states. \u201cBy the same token, it doesn\u2019t take much to light that candle. You pull the trigger on her, and she\u2019ll jump. Everything is fine with her, and as long as she\u2019s in good shape and wants to keep doing it, we\u2019ll continue with a 2027 campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although Grand Slam Smile, with Juan Hernandez up, is the morning-line even-money favorite Sunday, she will have two notable veteran Cal-Bred opponents in the Grable in Fibonaccis Ride and She\u2019s No Quant.<\/p>\n
Fibonaccis Ride (Victor Espinooza) defeated Grand Slam Smile when she won last summer\u2019s $150,000 Solana Beach at Del Mar. She\u2019s No Quant (Hector Berrios) won the $150,000 Fleet Treat Stakes during Del Mar\u2019s summer meeting.<\/p>\n
Notable<\/p>\n
Hernandez had three winners Saturday \u2014 Muscled ($11.80) in the first, Duntov ($3.80) in the fourth and Sterling Sea ($13.60) in the sixth.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Leonard Powell, trainer of Green Carrera, said the winner of Friday\u2019s Let It Ride Stakes could return to take on the boys again in the Grade I Hollywood Derby on Del Mar\u2019s closing weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eight days ago, Mr. Disrespectful, a 6-year-old gelding, ran fifth in a field of six in a sprint…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[8506,181,74,76,75,127],"class_list":["post-522364","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\/522364","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=522364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}