Shady Tiger © Benoit Photo
The feature attraction Friday at Del Mar is the 37th running of the Real Good Deal Stakes, a seven-panel spin for 3-year-old California-breds. The featured horse among the dozen who’ll go postward in the sprint is Rusty Brown’s homebred Shady Tiger, listed as the 9/5 favorite in the morning line.
The headliner, which carries a purse of $150,000 and is one of eight California-bred stakes on Del Mar’s summer agenda, will be offered as Race 6 on an eight-race program that gets underway at 4* p.m. The stakes should go off at approximately 6:30* p.m.
Shady Tiger, a gelded son of the top California sire Smiling Tiger, has earned his favoritism through his exploits in 2024, having won all four of his starts, the last two in California-bred stakes company. The bay, who is trained by Phil D’Amato and will be ridden once again by Juan Hernandez, captured the six and a half-furlong Echo Eddie Stakes at Santa Anita on April 6, then came back on May 25 at the Arcadia track to go a mile and one-eighth on the turf to tally in the Snow Chief Stakes.
Shady Tiger has been prepping steadily since that outing and drew a bullet for his most recent drill -- :58.40 on July 27 at Del Mar – indicating he figures to again be plenty tough in his return to sprinting Friday.
The “X” factor in the “Deal” could be a Sir Prancelot youngster named Pure Madness who is trained by Brian Koriner and will be handled Friday by Hall of Fame rider Victor Espinoza. The bay colt has only one outing on his resume, but it was a goodie. In a field of straight maidens June 8 at Santa Anita, he closed stoutly to win by better than two lengths going six and a half furlongs on turf. He was 17-1 that afternoon, but is listed as the 7/2 second choice in Friday’s heat.
Another soph in the field who’ll draw some attention is Little Red Feather Racing and Hopeless Stable’s Final Storm, a gelding by Blame who is a double winner in his brief career and also hails from the highly productive D’Amato barn. Kyle Frey rides him Friday, just as he has for each of his other half-dozen outings.
* corrected time of first post