Spendarella © Benoit Photo

GRAHAM MOTION BARN GOES TWO-FOR-TWO IN WEEKEND STAKES

This is not the first time trainer Graham Motion has shipped horses to Del Mar. This isn’t even the first time he’s won two stakes at the same meet, or the first time he’s won the Del Mar Oaks. Generally, Motion waits until the fall meet to strike at Del Mar, like he did in 2016 when he won the G1 Matriarch with Miss Temple City, the G2 Seabiscuit with Ring Weekend and the G3 Jimmy Durante with Journey Home.

He sent out two horses this weekend and they promptly won both of their races: Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners’ Sister Otoole in the $100,000 CTT & TOC on Friday and Gainesway Stable’s Spendarella in the G1 Del Mar Oaks on Saturday.

Motion didn’t make the trip out west, so it was up to his assistant, Alice Clapham to make sure everything went to plan. Judging by the results, it was mission accomplished.

“It’s been a very worthwhile trip,” Clapham said Sunday morning. “Very worthwhile.”

Clapham says Spendarella came out of her race in good shape. The 3-year-old daughter of Karakontie wowed the crowd of 13,182 when she displayed a tremendous turn of foot and left the full field of talented fillies in her wake.

“She’s always had it in her,” Clapham says, “but to power through that and leave them all, that was incredible.”

As to what may be next for Spendarella.

“I’m sure Graham will talk to Gainesway but I would think most likely the QE II at Keeneland because that’s the last 3-year old straight.”

Clapham says the decision to bring Sister Otoole out west with Spendarella was a combination of factors.

“You always look at the stakes book to see what else there is around,” Clapham said, “and it just worked out perfectly that the race (the CTT & TOC) fitted for her and the timing for her.”

Unlike her stablemate, Sister O’Toole hasn’t done a lot of traveling.

“We normally keep her closer to home,” Clapham says. “She ran at Belmont and Delaware and the turf at both was really soft. She ran well but she just doesn’t really like it. So the option to come out here and you can share the pallet with the two horses, it makes the expenses for the owners so much better. It just helps everybody.”

Not to mention the “Ship & Win” enticement offered by Del Mar.

Spendarella and Sister Otoole will ship out Tuesday and head back to Motion’s base at Fair Hill in Maryland.

The runner-up in the Oaks, Bellabel, also came out the race in good order. Trainer Phil D’Amato was proud of her effort.

“She ran her race,” D’Amato says. “That other filly is an exceptional filly and hats off to Graham Motion and the owners. We’re very proud of our filly and hopefully it’s something to build off of.”

D’Amato says they have yet to decide where Bellabel will run next.

“We’ll just come up with a game plan here in the next couple of weeks,” he said. “She ran back-to-back good races, tough races, and we’re excited about her going forward.”

CLOCKERS KEEP DEL MAR ON TIME IN THE MORNINGS

Timing is everything, especially in horse racing. They time the races, they time the morning workouts and, in some places, they even time the load into the gate.

Clocking the morning workouts at Del Mar is the job of a half a dozen people who arrive at Del Mar at the crack of dawn, seven days a week for the duration of the eight week meet. John Malone is the head clocker at Del Mar.

“The track opens at 4:30,” Malone says. “I have a crew of six, one is in his own room, three are in with me, and one is across the way.”

Across the way is at the gap on the backstretch, where the horses enter the racetrack. The room where John clocks the horses is the stewards’ booth on the sixth floor of the grandstand, just below where Trevor Denman resides on race day. It provides a perfect birds-eye view of the entire racetrack. Malone says most of the people working for him had previous jobs in the racing industry.

“In the past they were people who trained horses and that type of thing,” Malone says. “Most start out working on the tab which is all of the computer work and answering the phone.”

The process of clocking a horse’s morning workout begins with a phone call from the trainer.

“They’re supposed to call up and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to work so and so’ or they send me a text. It’s a lot easier now with this (the cellphone) than it used to be.”

Malone’s first year as a clocker was 1991. While things have changed over the years, one thing has remained constant. Identifying the horses out on the track. Unlike during the races, the horses on the track don’t have numbers on their saddle cloths or brightly dressed riders on their backs.

“We have a database under The Jockey Club and we look up all of the markings on the horses, “Malone says. “In theory, as horses come through the lane, we’re supposed to match them up with the markings on the horse.”

Malone remembers working with one particular colleague who was exceptionally good at the job.

“His name was Chuck,” John remembers. “He knew every horse just by seeing them. He had a great memory. We didn’t even need a person at the gap, he would just say ‘so and so’ was going to work, just by seeing the horse.”

On any given weekday there can be up to 100 horses working in the morning at Del Mar, sometimes over 200 horses on the weekends. John and his crew clock every one of them. It has its perks. Malone has had a front row seat to some of the greats of the game.

 “American Pharoah, all of the good ones from the past 30 years,” he notes.

The public is invited to enjoy the morning workouts daily. Admission is free but parking is $10.

NOR CAL TRAINER MAKES THE BEST OF HIS TIME AT DEL MAR

Andy Mathis is a 43-year old trainer based out of Golden Gate Fields. He loves to come to Del Mar every summer and try his luck. This year it’s been very good.

With only 24 starts, Mathis has seven wins at the meet, good enough to place him seventh in the trainer standings. It has Mathis sitting on cloud nine.          

“Better than I could have expected,” Mathis says. “Sometimes you get a little luck and there’s plenty of time you don’t.”

Mathis brought 28 horses to Del Mar at the start of the meet. Some have been claimed and the rest he’ll take back up to Northern California.

“My plan has never been to come down here and stay down here,” Mathis says. “I fully understand people who want to do that. I’m raising my kids in Walnut Creek, they’re in school so that’s my home. I’m not trying to make a new home.”

Mathis comes to Del Mar a week before the meet begins and stays thru the last week of racing.

“We don’t come here for a vacation,” Mathis says. “It’s all work. We run hard and go hard the whole way and whatever happens, happens.”

Mathis first started making the trip south in 2014 and he’s done it every year since, except for the first year of COVID. He got his trainer’s license in 2001 and has been based at Golden Gate Fields since then. He says he first became interested in working in horse racing while he was in college.

“I was going to a community college in San Francisco,” Mathis says, “and I was wrapping that up, figuring I didn’t want to go to school anymore. I had been going to the races at Golden Gate Fields and Bay Meadows and thought that (horse racing) could be something I’d like to get into. I got a job on the backside with Bill McLean at Golden Gate Fields and kind of fell in love with it.”

For a boy who grew up in Sonoma, California, a town just north of the Bay Area, Del Mar has always held a special charm for him.

“I have a good group of horses, a good group of Cal-breds,” Mathis says. “I like coming down here for the weather and the beach. The whole town,  everybody knows there’s a racetrack and it’s a big deal. I think the thing for me is to be a part of that, to be racing in an environment like that. It’s exciting and you want to do good.”

Ironically, Mathis wasn’t even present for his first winner at Del Mar, an Argentina-bred horse named Igor in 2006. Instead, he had sent the horse to Art Sherman to run here.

“They’re all special here,” he offers. “You win a cheap claiming race and it’s exciting because it’s hard to win here. I never assume I’m going to get back in the winner’s circle. You run horses here you think are alive, that they’re going to run well…believe me anytime I win a race here at Del Mar I know it could be a couple years before I get back into the winner’s circle.“

Lately, that doesn’t seem to be a problem for Andy Mathis.

COOLING OUT: The high-priced 2-year-old out of the Bob Baffert barn finished a respectable second in his debut Saturday. Hejazi is a $3.5 million dollar purchase by Zedan Racing. The horse that beat Hejazi, Classical Cat, is owned by Michael House of Rancho Santa Fe. Earlier in the day, House also won with a star filly he owns a part of, Nest, in the G1 Alabama at Saratoga…Notable works for Sunday: Dirt – C Z Rocket (4f, :49.40); The Big Wam (4f, :48.20); Edgeway (5f, 1:00.40) and American Theorem (6f, 1:14.00). Turf – Cabo Spirit (4f, :50.40); Balnikhov (5f, 1:02.80); Count Again (5f, 1:04.60); Going to Vegas (5f, 1:02.80), and Hong Kong Harry (5f, 1:02.80). A total of 212 horses put in official works on the dirt, 34 on the turf.

Del Mar Statistics

Jockey Standings
(Current Through Saturday, August 20, 2022 Inclusive)

Trainer Standings
(Current Through Saturday, August 20, 2022 Inclusive)

Winning Favorites Report
(Current Through Saturday, August 20, 2022 Inclusive)

 Winning favorites -- 61 out of 170 -- 35.88%
Winning favorites on dirt -- 36 out of 94 -- 38.30%
Winning favorites on turf -- 25 out of 76 -- 32.89%
Winning odds-on favorites -- 11 out of 28   -- 39.29%
In-the-Money favorites -- 130 out of 170 -- 76.47%
In-the-Money odds-on favorites -- 24 out of 28 -- 85.71%