Vasilika © Benoit Photo

REVERBERATIONS OF ‘SHAKE’ MAY BE FELT AGAIN IN YELLOW RIBBON

The shake happened February 11, 2018, right after the first race at Santa Anita. The reverberations of it have been felt in Arcadia and San Diego 14 times since, and figure to be again tomorrow.

No, not the initial ground-moving tremor of an earthquake and aftershocks. The procedure, known as the ‘shake’ in racetrack parlance, is for determining the new owner and trainer when there is more than one seeking to acquire a horse from a claiming race.

Insert numbered marbles, assigned to each participating party, in a painted-over bottle. Shake. Remove one and award the horse to the person with the winning number.

Shakes are common occurrences. But few prove as consequential as the one on February 11, 2018 because it involved a 4-year-old filly named Vasilika in a $40,000 claimer. The Kentucky-bred daughter of Skipshot had recorded four wins in 17 starts and had changed owners three times via the claim entering the one-mile turf race, which she won.

Hall of Fame trainer Jerry Hollendorfer won the shake for Vasilika on a claim filed on behalf of himself, longtime partner George Todaro and others. In early March, Vasilika ran second in an allowance in her first start for Hollendorfer then started a streak of eight straight wins, from the allowance to Grade I stakes levels.

Her 2018 campaign ended with a fourth-place finish in the Grade I Matriarch here in December. But she has come back to go four-for-four in stakes in 2019 capped by the Grade I Gamely in May at Santa Anita. Vasilika will seek to make it five straight in the Grade II $200,000 Yellow Ribbon Stakes on Saturday and add to an earnings total that is now more than $1.3 million. Of that, $1,209,528 has been accumulated since being claimed.

Do the trainers who lost out on Vasilika ever think ‘She could have been mine?’

“I think it to myself, and I say it to everyone around me every time she runs and especially every time she wins,” Jeff Mullins said Friday morning. “And she wins a lot.”

Word in the stable area was that it was a six-way shake for Vasilika. Hollendorfer assistant Dan Ward recalled that there were four claims put in, two by Hollendorfer and two by Bill Spawr, who confirmed his two and remembered Mullins being in the mix. Mullins said he put in one claim.

Both Spawr and Mullins have raised horses from the claiming ranks – acquired via solo bids or via shake wins – to stakes levels. Spawr’s successes include Exchange, Sensational Star, Restage, My Sonny Boy and Skye Diamonds. Mullins’ most notable claim was Choctaw Nation.

They can be commended for seeing the potential that few others did. Vasilika had been claimed twice for $25,000 and once for $32,000 while running in Florida and New York before shipping in for her February 11 California debut.

“Roddy Valente, who owned her back east, (and had her claimed away for $32,000) tipped me off that she would be a good claim, and in the 15 minutes before the race when we got to look at her she looked beautiful,” Spawr said. “Roddy was right about her being a good horse, but wrong to let her go.”

Mullins didn’t require any outside information. “She was stabled right across from my barn and you could see, just by the look of her, that she might turn out to be pretty good,” Mullins said.

That she has.

The field for the Yellow Ribbon was diminished by one with the Friday scratch of Causeforcommotion. The field from the rail: Beau Recall (Drayden Van Dyke, 7-2), Youngest Daughter (Brice Blanc, 20-1), Storm the Hill (Rafael Bejarano, 5-1), Vasilika (Julien Leparoux, 7-5), Lemoona (Mario  Gutierrez, 12-1), Valedictorian (Carlos Hernandez, 6-1), Toinette (Ruben Fuentes, 6-1) and Elysea’s World (Joe Talamo, 12-1).

The Yellow Ribbon goes as the eighth on a 10-race card.

NEPTUNE’S STORM FAVORED ON MORNING LINE FOR SUNDAY’S LA JOLLA

Richard Baltas-trained Neptune’s Storm drew the No. 1 post and was established as the 2-1 favorite in a field of eight for Sunday’s Grade III $150,000 La Jolla Handicap.

The 1 1/16-mile La Jolla, being run for the 79^th time, is the second in the three-race turf series for 3-year-olds that began with the $100,000 Runhappy Oceanside at one mile on opening day of the meeting.

Oceanside winner Jasikan is the 5-2 second choice on oddsmaker Russ Hudak’s morning line. The Hronis Racing color bearer, trained by John Sadler, is seeking to become the first to accomplish the Oceanside-La Jolla sweep since Enterprising in 2014 and join Enterprising and Blackdoun (2004) as the only ones to accomplish the feat in the 2000s.

Neptune’s Storm, a gelded son of Stormy Atlantic, has been freshened since back-to-back stakes victories in the ungraded Singletary and Cinema at Santa Anita in April and June. Neptune’s Storm has four wins from nine starts and earnings of $249,585.

The field from the rail: Neptune’s Storm (Drayden Van Dyke, 2-1), Kingly (Mario Gutierrez, 6-1), Gregorian Chant (Norberto Arroyo, Jr., 6-1), Golden Birthday (Joe Talamo, 12-1), Stubbins (Rafael Bejarano, 4-1), Jasikan (Flavien Prat, 5-2), King of Speed (Victor Espinoza, 20-1) and Rijeka (Ruben Fuentes, 12-1).

PRAT, SMITH AT SARATOGA TO RIDE TEST, WHITNEY FAVORITES

Meet-leading jockey Flavien Prat and Hall of Fame rider Mike Smith will travel to Saratoga for assignments in Saturday’s main events, the Test and Whitney Stakes there.

Prat will pilot Bellafina, as he has in all nine of her career starts, in the $500,000 Test as the 3-year-old Quality Road filly goes for her seventh victory and looks to add to more than $1.1 million in earnings for owner Kaleem Shah and trainer Simon Callaghan. Bellafina is the 2-1 favorite in a field of seven.

Smith, the regular rider for McKinzie, will be up as the 4-year-old son of Street Sense makes his 12^th career start, seeking a seventh win and to add to over $1.7 million in earnings in the $1 million Whitney for trainer Bob Baffert  and owners Mike Pegram, Karl Watson and Paul Weitman. The Whitney is a “Win and You’re In” qualifier for the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic in the fall at Santa Anita of which McKinzie is an early favorite.

TRAINER RACE COULDN’T GET ANY TIGHTER; JOCKEY RACE MIGHT

The record-tying five-win day by Doug O’Neill elevated him into a tie for the lead in the trainer standings with Peter Miller – at nine wins apiece – and it stayed that way when they each went 0-for-2 on Thursday.

Drayden Van Dyke trails Flavien Prat 15-12 for the lead in the jockey standings, but Van Dyke will have an opportunity to make up ground Saturday. With Prat at Saratoga to ride Bellafina in the Test Stakes, Van Dyke has been booked on seven mounts in the 10-race program. A close-up third is Rafael Bejarano, who has 11 wins, five mounts today and seven on Saturday.

CLOSERS – Selected works from 123 officially timed Friday morning: Big Score (4f, :49.40), Itsinthepost (4f, :49.00), Kentan Road (:4f, :48.80) and Royal Thunder (4f, :46.80) … Steve Carp, longtime writer for the Las Vegas Review Journal, now senior editor for the publication Gaming Today, is here for three days and spent part of Friday morning interviewing Del Mar CEO Joe Harper.

DEL MAR STATISTICS

Jockey Standings

(Current Through Thursday, August 1, 2019 Inclusive)

Trainer Standings

(Current Through Thursday, August 1, 2019 Inclusive)

Winning Favorites Report

(Current Through Thursday, August 1, 2019 Inclusive)

Winning favorites -- 43 out of 96 -- 44.79%

Winning favorites on dirt -- 27 out of 57 -- 47.37%

Winning favorites on turf -- 16 out of 39 -- 41.03%

Winning odds-on favorites -- 12 out of 17 -- 70.59%

In-the-Money favorites -- 72 out of 96 -- 75.00%

In-the-Money odds-on favorites -- 16 out of 17 -- 94.12%