Del Mar Thoroughbred Club will present its second Bing Crosby Season starting Thursday with opening-day of the 20-day fall meeting featuring 14 California-bred two-year-old fillies going seven furlongs in the $200,000 Golden State Juvenile Fillies. Post time for the first of eight races will be 12:30 p.m.

 

Friday and Saturday’s action at Del Mar will be enhanced by Thoroughbred racing’s showcase of champions, the Breeders’ Cup taking place at Keeneland race course in Lexington, Kentucky with 13 Breeders’ Cup races offering $24.5 million in purses for many of the best horses in the world.

 

In a much anticipated confrontation with strong Horse of the Year implications, Triple Crown winner American Pharoah will face the sensational mare Beholder Saturday in the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at a mile and one-quarter. Beholder won Del Mar’s $1 million TVG Pacific Classic in a brilliant performance last summer.

 

Del Mar gates open at 9 a.m. Friday and 7:30 a.m. Saturday. Del Mar’s first race will be 12:45 p.m. on Breeders’ Cup days. Del Mar racing will be conducted four days per week, Thursday through Sunday, for the five-week session which will conclude Sunday, November 29.

 

Fifteen stakes, ten of them graded, are on the schedule this fall, highlighted by the Grade I Hollywood Derby, won by California Chrome a year ago, and the Grade I Matriarch Stakes, both races worth $300,000. The Hollywood Derby will be run Saturday, Nov. 28, while the Matriarch Stakes is set for closing day.

 

Expected to vie for favoritism in the Golden State Juvenile Fillies are Patriotic Diamond (Rafael Bejarano) and Just Google Me (Edwin Maldonado), the one-two finishers in last summer’s Generous Portion Stakes. Patriotic Diamond, trained by Patrick Biancone, won the Generous Portion by a hard-fought length and one-quarter over Just Google Me, conditioned by Scott Rollins. However, Just Google Me came back to win the Barretts Debutante in a canter, by nine and one-half lengths.

 

Coming into the race off maiden victories are Red Stich, Pacific Heat, Octofy and Forthenineteen. Others in the line-up, all winners, are Sharp Holiday, Run for Retts, Yodelsong, Obey, Dragon Flower, Khalaya, Sambamzajammin and Halo Darlin.