Eight talented two-year-olds with designs on the championship-deciding Grade I $300,000 Del Mar Futurity on closing day, Sept. 3 will be attempting to establish their worthiness Sunday in the 44th running of the Grade II $200,000 Best Pal Stakes at 6 ½ furlongs over Del Mar’s main track.
Story to Tell, a son of Bluegrass Cat who will be piloted by Joe Talamo, figures to attract solid betting support on the basis of his record of two wins in three starts, including a victory in the Willard L. Proctor Memorial at Los Alamitos last month. Previously, he was a good second to the unbeaten Wake Up Nick in the Santa Anita Juvenile.
Trainers Doug O’Neill and Mark Casse each entered two horses in the Best Pal. O’Neill’s entrants are Bad Read Sanchez (Mario Gutierrez), runner-up in the Proctor Memorial, and Henry’s Holiday (Tyler Baze), fourth to Wake Up Nick in the Santa Anita Juvenile.
Casse, campaigning his stable at Del Mar for the first time, will saddle Conquest Bigluck E (Mike Smith), a maiden winner at Churchill Downs, and Skyway (Stewart Elliott), winner of a maiden race on Keeneland’s Polytrack surface in early April and more recently third to Cinco Charlie in the Grade III Bashford Manor Stakes at Churchill Downs.
Others in the Best Pal Stakes line-up are maiden winners Two Six Wins (Martin Pedroza), Rowdy Dylan (Edwin Maldonado) and Highway Boss (Tiago Pereira), victor in the Everett Nevin Stakes during the Oak Tree-at-Pleasanton meeting.