Shady Tiger © Benoit Photo
SHADY TIGER EYES FIFTH STRAIGHT WIN IN REAL GOOD DEAL FRIDAY
Shady Tiger has been a trainer’s dream. The 3-year old gelded son of Smiling Tiger has won going long and won sprinting. He’s won on the turf and he’s won on the dirt. The only thing the Cal-bred hasn’t done is win in open company but trainer Phil D’Amato says that time will come.
“I think his ability should transfer to open company down the road,” D’Amato says. “He’s done everything the right way. He’s just a really nice horse.”
Shady Tiger will be the favorite in Friday’s $150,000 Real Good Deal, a Cal-bred stakes for 3-year olds going seven furlongs. A dozen colts and geldings are set to line-up in the feature.
“I think his best trip is this trip, seven eights on the dirt,” D’Amato contends. “That’s the same kind of trip he got in the stake at Santa Anita where he won by daylight.”
That was the $125,000 Echo Eddie in April. He won by 5 ½ lengths. Prior to that he had won close finishes in his maiden win in January and an entry-level allowance on the turf at Santa Anita in February. His debut was at Del Mar last fall where he finished second.
Shady Tiger’s last out was a victory in the $125,000 Snow Chief going a mile and an eighth on the grass on Memorial Day weekend.
“He can do it all,” D’Amato says. “Short, long, turf, dirt. His last breeze was sensational. It was 58 and change and he looked like he was going well. I know he’s sharp, fit and ready to go.”
Not exactly what his rivals want to hear.
Last Call London is one the most experienced of the 12 runners in the Real Good Deal. He’s made 12-career starts. He’s oh-for-4 this year, but was runner-up in the Turf Paradise Derby in March and third in the Cal Cup Derby at Santa Anita in January. His last win came in the $100,000 King Glorious at Los Alamitos in December.
“We were pointing to this race,” trainer Peter Miller says. “He doesn’t have any conditions and this is a good spot for a 3-year-old Cal-bred.”
Last summer as a 2-year old at Del Mar, Last Call London showed an affinity for the track, missing by a head in a runner-up finish in the $125,000 Graduation Stakes and then running third in the $125,000 I’m Smokin. He hasn’t raced since running a distant ninth in the Echo Eddie.
“We gave him a break,” Miller explains. “He had a long campaign so we gave him some time off and freshened him up.”
Reddam Racing’s Stay On the Fence has also made 12 starts, three of them against Shady Tiger. The son of Pavel’s best race was two back in May when he won an entry-level allowance by 4 ½ lengths at Santa Anita. He ran 10th and last in his most recent outing, the Snow Chief, when trainer Antonio Garcia tried him for a second time on the turf.
The Real Good Deal is Race #6 on the eight-race Friday card. Probable post is 6:30 p.m.
Here’s the field from the rail with the jockeys and morning line odds: Pure Madness (Victor Espinoza, 7/2); Mio Bambino (Armando Ayuso, 30-1); Stay On the Fence (Mario Gutierrez, 20-1); Final Storm (Kyle Frey, 5-1); Tequila Talkin (Tiago Pereira, 20-1); Curlin’s Kaos (Diego Herrera, 6-1); Donnie the Chiro (Adrian Escobedo, 20-1); Prince Prancealot (Jose Valdivia, 20-1); Last Call London (Antonio Fresu, 12-1); Oobubbakakayo (Emily Ellingwood, 30-1); Capo Luigi (Ricky Gonzalez, 15-1), and Shady Tiger (Juan Hernandez, 9/5).
DEFENDING CHAMPS BACK ON TOP OF JOCKEY AND TRAINER STANDINGS
If the first two weeks of the Del Mar summer meet are any indication, the races for the jockey and training titles are going to be contentious. Both standings have a logjam of players at the top.
Defending champion Juan Hernandez and Umberto Rispoli lead the way among the riders with eight wins a piece. Half of Rispoli’s victories have been in stakes races so he is the top money earner so far with $721,300.
Right behind the top two are Hector Berrios and Kyle Frey with seven scores. Frey is coming off a riding title at Los Alamitos and a third-place finish at the Hollywood meet at Santa Anita this spring.
“I try not to take credit. That way I don’t have to take the blame,” Frey jokingly says. “I feel like I always have an opportunity. I’m a guy who tries hard and tries to win no matter what but I have to keep myself grounded.”
Antonio Fresu and Kazushi Kimura are next with four victories followed by Reylu Gutierrez and Edwin Maldonado with three. Abel Cedillo and Mike Smith round out the Top Ten with two wins a piece.
The trainers race is also a battle. After a relatively slow start, by his standards, (one win in his first 12 starts), defending champ Phil D’Amato caught fire and bolted to the top of the standings by the end of week two. He’s tied with Michael McCarthy with five tallies. With two stakes wins, the G2 San Clemente (his lone win in week one) and the $100,000 Wickerr Stakes, D’Amato leads in earnings with $524,580.
Five trainers are hot on the leader’s heels with four wins. Bob Baffert, Mark Glatt, Tim Yakteen, John Sadler and Doug O’Neill all had a solid week and are one hot streak away from assuming the lead.
Craig Dollase is next with three victories. Steve Knapp and Peter Miller round out the Top Ten with two. Miller’s win on Sunday with Danzing Cat was his 1,500th career victory.
“It means I’ve been around a long time,” Miller says of the milestone.
Nick Alexander leads all owners with four wins.
Through the first six days of racing at Del Mar there have been 60 races with an average field size of 9.05. Twenty-eight of those races were run on the turf with an average field size of 10.14.
2024 RACING HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES WITH TIES TO DEL MAR
The class of 2024 will be inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame Friday, and several of the nine new members have ties to Del Mar. Gun Runner won the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar in 2017. Jockey Joel Rosario rode at Del Mar and won three riding titles and Clement L. Hirsch, a powerful businessman and leader in the horse racing industry, helped found racing at the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club.
Gun Runner was already the inside favorite to win Horse of the Year honors in 2017 when he came to Del Mar for the Breeders’ Cup. As expected, he romped in the big race, winning by 2 ¼ lengths over Collected, who a few months earlier had won the Pacific Classic at Del Mar. Fellow Hall of Famer Arrogate was also in the race.
The son of Candy Ride would run one more race, winning the G1 Pegasus World Cup in 2018 before retiring with a stellar record of 19-12-3-2 and earnings of over $15.9 million, second only to Arrogate on the all-time earnings list.
Joel Rosario first came to Del Mar in 2007. He won the first of his 34 stakes races at the seaside oval in 2008 and would go on to notch the first of three consecutive riding titles in 2009. In 2012 he decided to pack up, move his tack and prove his meddle back east. He rode at Saratoga that summer except for one day. He returned to Del Mar for the Pacific Classic and won on Dullahan.
Over the years, Rosario has raced at Del Mar on other big money days, as recently as last fall when he rode Surge Capacity to victory in the G1 Matriarch, a race he’s won five times since it moved to Del Mar in 2014. He also won two Breeders’ Cup races at Del Mar in 2021 on Knicks Go in the Classic and Echo Zulu in the Juvenile Fillies.
If it were not for Clement L. Hirsch, there might not be racing at Del Mar these days. He was a U.S. Marine who fought in the South Pacific during World War II and would inherited a large sum of money and turn it into a huge fortune.
In 1968, Hirsch and John Mabee created the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, a group of horseman seeking to protect and improve the sport of horseracing. While the track turns a profit most years, none of that money goes to the club members. It all goes back into the Del Mar facility and operation.
Back in 1970, the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club’s lease with the state on the Fairgrounds was due to expire. A couple of wealthy entrepreneurs in the area used their influence and money to pull some questionable strings and get the inside track to a new lease on the property.
Clement L. Hirsch, who was running the Oak Tree Racing Association at the time, got word of the scheme and stepped in. He was a powerful man with his own connections and managed to thwart the effort and win a new lease for the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club.
Six others will be inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame Friday. Daily Racing Form columnist Joe Hirsch (no relation to Clement), Triple Crown winner Justify, owner and breeder Harry Guggenheim, racehorses Aristides and Lecomte, and jockey Abe Hawkins.
COOLING OUT: Johannes came out of his impressive win in Sunday’s G2 Eddie Read “excellent,” according to trainer Tim Yakteen. While a final decision has not been made on the colt’s next race, Yakteen said they are most likely pointing to the G2 City of Hope at Santa Anita in October though, he added, they had not entirely ruled out the G2 Del Mar Mile on August 31…Jockey Giovanni Franco has been diagnosed with a cracked shoulder and may be out for the rest of the summer meet, per his agent Jack Carava. Franco suffered the injury in a spill during a race Friday. He also suffered a knee injury and will undergo an MRI in the coming days…Notable works this week, all on the dirt: Monday – Big City Lights (5f, 1:00.80); Stronghold (5f, 1:01.00) and Prince of Monaco (6f, 1:10.60). Tuesday – Tahoe Sunrise (4f, 48.20) and Linda’s Gift (7f, 1:26.80). Wednesday – Senor Buscador (5f, 1:00.20). Thursday – Wynstock (5f, 1:00.00).