Truly Quality © Coglianese Photos

Ten marathon-running racehorses will match leg and lung capacity at the seaside oval Friday in the 43rd edition of the Hollywood Turf Cup going a mile and one half on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course.

The demanding test carries a purse of $200,000 and Grade II status. The horse who proves best in this longest part of Del Mar’s Turf Festival will add $120,000 to his bankroll.

The one who appears to have the best chance of arriving first at the wire could be Augustin Stables’ homebred Truly Quality, a 4-year-old gelding by Quality Road who’ll be competing at his seventh different racetrack in his last seven starts. He’ll reunite with rider Vincent Cheminaud for trainer Jonathan Thomas and break from the outside post on the Del Mar backstretch.

Cheminaud and Thomas clicked nicely here last Sunday with another Augustin homebred in Mrs. Astor, who took down honors in the Red Carpet Stakes on the lawn. It was the first Del Mar stakes win for both rider and trainer and now, it surely appears, they are wanting more.

Truly Quality comes into the route off a pair of stakes wins, the first in September at Colonial Downs in Virginia and the most recent in the Singspiel Stakes at Canada’s Woodbine Racetrack outside of Toronto. In seven starts this year, the dark bay or brown stretch runner has three tallies, two seconds and two thirds. His current earnings are $378,995.

Here’s the full field for the marathon in post position order with riders and morning line odds:

Kretz Racing’s Cabo Spirit (Victor Espinoza, 4-1); Red Baron’s Barn or Rancho Temescal’s Dicey Mo Chara (Flavien Prat, 5-1); Madaket Stables and Panic Stable’s Divin Propos (Umberto Rispoli, 5-1); Madaket Stables, Wonder Stables, et al’s Rockemperor (Juan Hernandez, 10-1); Kirk Sutherland’s Fearless Soldier (Kyle Frey, 20-1); Hector Castrellon’s None Above the Law (Tiago Pereira, 20-1); Stepaside Farm’s Nineeleventurbo (Antonio Fresu, 8-1); Little Red Feather Racing and Madaket Stables’ Balnikhov (Kazushi Kimura, 6-1); Bernsen or Stuart’s Goldeneye (Ricky Gonzalez, 12-1), and Truly Quality (5/2).

The Hollywood Turf Cup will go as Race 7 on the nine-race card with a likely post time of 3:30 p.m.

A trio of runners appear to be the chief threats to the top one. They are Cabo Spirit, Dicey Mo Chara and Divin Propos.

The first-named finished far back in his most recent effort, but that was against many of the best turf horses in the world in the $5-million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Del Mar on November 2. Prior to that one he was a game winner of the Grade II John Henry Turf Cup at Santa Anita at a mile and a quarter on September 28. He’s a winner of more than $1,000,000.

Dicey Mo Chara’s last outing was in the John Henry where he finished fourth, two lengths behind Cabo Spirit. The British-bred 6-year-old is a four-time winner of more than $650,000 who ran fourth in this same race last year.

Divin Propos is a French-bred who began his U.S. career this past summer and has a pair of good allowance wins on the turf to his credit so far.

First post Friday will be the usual 12:30 p.m.