As the saying goes, two out of three ain’t bad.

 

And Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert said Wednesday morning that he’ll run two of his very good fillies, American Cleopatra and Noted and Quoted, in Saturday’s Grade I $300,000 Del Mar Debutante while saving American Gal for another day.

 

American Cleopatra, a full sister to Triple Crown champion American Pharoah, steps up to the highest level of stakes competition off a two-length victory in a 5 ½-furlong racing debut here on July 31. Noted and Quoted made late progress to finish fourth in her five-furlong first career start here on July 16 and returned with an impressive 9 ½-length win at six furlongs on August 7.

 

Last week, Baffert stated intentions to also start American Gal, another first-out winner here, in the Debutante but said Wednesday the Kentucky-bred daughter of Concord Point, owned by Kaleem Shah, would be handled conservatively as the result of a cough and minor mucous buildup.

 

The seven-furlong Debutante, which drew seven entries, determines the 2-year-old filly champion of the meeting and has showcased the eventual Eclipse Award winner in the Juvenile Filly category three of the last four years – Songbird, She’s a Tiger and Beholder.

 

The post position draw was  scheduled later Wednesday, but the entrants, in alphabetical order with trainer/jockey are: American Cleopatra (Baffert/Bejarano), Champagne Room (Peter Eurton/Mario Gutierrez), Holy Mosey (Molly Pearson/Guiseppe Ercegovic), Miss Southern Miss (Keith Desormeaux/Kent Desormeaux), Morganite (John Sadler/Victor Espinoza), Noted and Quoted (Baffert/Mike Smith) and Union Strike (Shelbe Ruis/Martin Garcia).

 

Saturday’s card also contains the $100,000 Del Mar Juvenile Turf. In its fifth running, the grassy one-mile event figures to identify some candidates for the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf on November 4 at Santa Anita.

 

It drew the maximum number of entries, 14, and all can be accommodated on Del Mar’s widened Jimmy Durante Turf Course for the one-mile event.

 

The field, in alphabetical order: Arch Prince (Val Brinkerhoff/Gary Stevens), Big Score (Tim Yakteen/Flavien Prat), Billy Big (Phil D’Amato/Kent Desormeaux), Bowie’s Hero (Phil D’Amato/Rafael Bejarano), Eichel (Edward Freeman/Tyler Baze), Excavation (Phil D’Amato/Joe Talamo), Exotic Ghost (Mike Puype/Santiago Gonzalez), Farley (Doug O’Neill/Mario Gutierrez),  Irish Goodbye (Keith Desormeaux/Brice Blanc), Ky. Colonel (Richard Mandella/Mike Smith), Saldamente (Brian Koriner/Jamie Theriot) and Van Cortlandt (Simon Callaghan/Mike Smith).

Excavation was a supplemental entry.

 

 

 

Horse racing fans take pride in their “marathon” runners – the ones that race distances anywhere from a mile and three eighths to two miles. They’re often referred to as “long winded.” Human race fans take pride in their own kind running the marathon distance of 26.21 miles. They’re often referred to as being “dead fit.”

 

But finding a phrase for someone like Angela Shartel, who is an ultramarathoner, isn’t so easy. When you run 100-mile races – repeat 100-mile races -- descriptive phrases might range anywhere from “totally amazing” to “fully nuts.”

 

Shartel, all 5-foot-3-inch-125-pounds worth of her, understands. And she loves it all.

 

The 42-year-old mother of three will be at Del Mar Thursday to present the trophy to the winner of the day’s feature. Maybe there should be a second presentation to Angela – the first annual “Just How Much Pain Can You Stand” trophy.

 

“Folks do shake their heads when they hear about it, but I love to embrace the journey; I love the suffering that is part of it,” she says. “You’ve got to believe that running doesn’t work for you unless you work for it. You’ve got to learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.”

 

Her racetrack connection comes through California state veterinarian Barrie Grant, who currently works the Del Mar meeting. His daughter, Aubyn Grant, is a personal trainer who runs Aubyn Grant Fitness out of La Mesa, CA and works as a trainer for San Diegan Shartel.

 

“Aubyn is my strength and conditioning coach,” says Shartel. “She’s great at it and she helps me a lot. But the running part, that’s on me. I’m the one that gets out there and does it. It can’t be any other way.”

 

Shartel’s “journey” into the world of ultramarathons began at a low point in her life in 2004. Caught in an abusive marriage and attempting to console herself with food, she ballooned to 200 pounds. She was on all sorts of medication, was deep into depression and only continued to spiral down.

 

But somewhere inside she found her strength; she resolved to make herself better. With help from friends, she hit the gym, changed her diet and lost 60 pounds in a year. But that wasn’t enough. Her compulsiveness found a sweet spot in what first was long distance walking/jogging, but then turned into marathoning. Her first full marathon was the Big Sur in 2006.  Eight others followed the next few years, including Boston twice.

 

Then someone told her about long-distance trail running. She tried it, didn’t like it at first, but hung in there with it (she’s good at that) and found a new love. In 2008 she ran her first “ultra” – the “High Desert 50K” in Ridgecrest, CA. In 2009 she took on her first 100 miler and, somehow, finished it. Since then she just can’t get enough.

 

She’s now run 33 “ultras,” with no fewer than nine of them at a distance of at least 100 miles. She not only completes these runs, she often finishes first of all the women in them. In several, she’s even finished as high as third overall alongside the men.

 

Earlier this month she took on her stiffest challenge -- the 122-mile “Fat Dog” ultra through the hills, dales, trails and thick bush of British Columbia’s Cascade Mountains, which required as much as 30,000 feet of elevation change during the run. She ran for 31 hours and 33 minutes. Unlike some others in the race, she “never stopped moving.” She was the first woman across the line, the sixth finisher overall.

 

Shartel throws out a special tip of the cap to horse racing and the role it played in her new world. Ultramarathons came about thanks to a legendary annual trail ride called the Tevis Cup that first began in 1955, where horse and rider would cover 100 miles in one day from Truckee, CA (near Lake Tahoe) through the rugged Sierra Nevada mountains to Auburn, CA, passing through such Old West wonders as Last Chance, Deadwood and Chicken Hawk.

 

In 1971 and 1972, a fellow named Gordy Ainsleigh made the Tevis ride on his faithful steed, but in 1973 he couldn’t finish when his horse was injured along the way. Somehow, that projected a thought into his head that the following year he wasn’t going to allow that to happen again – that instead he’d just run it himself along with the horses. And, wouldn’t you know it, 23 hours and 42 minutes worth later, he had. Voila, ultramarathoning was born.

 

“So when I come to the track Thursday,” Shartel said, “I’ll have a special place in my heart for all the horses I see. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be as happy as I am today.”

 

 

 

Entering the final, six-day week of the meeting, Flavien Prat and Phil D’Amato are the ones to catch as they set sights on their first Del Mar jockey and trainer titles respectively.

 

For Prat, a 24-year-old native of Melun, France, it would be a first championship anywhere. D’Amato came into the meeting having won the training championships at both the spring and summer meetings at Santa Anita.

 

Prat won six races over the weekend to open up a seven-win gap (35-28) over four-time defending champion Rafael Bejarano with Santiago Gonzalez one more behind.

 

D’Amato notched two wins on Saturday and one on Sunday as did Bob Baffert. Richard Baltas and Peter Miller each won twice on Sunday to stay within range, but D’Amato leads by three over Baltas (19-16) and four over Miller and Baffert.

 

Through the first 33 days of the season, the top five trainers: D’Amato, Baltas, Miller, Baffert, and Sadler have won 26% of the total races run.

 

 

CLOSERS – Del Mar-based Mike Smith has been accorded the Jockeys’ Guild Jockey of the Week honor. Smith journeyed to Saratoga on Saturday and rode Drefong to victory in the $500,000 King’s Bishop and Arrogate to a track-record triumph in the $1.25 million Travers for Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert. No wonder Baffert refers to Smith as “Big Money Mike” … Selected works from 248 officially timed over the past three days: Monday – Miss Catomine (3f, :37.40), Pretty N Cool (3f, :35.40), Lord Nelson (4f, :47.80), American Cleopatra (5f, 1:00.40), American Gal (5f, :59.00), Auntjenn (5f, 1:02.60), Noted and Quoted (5f, 1:00.60; Tuesday – Toews On Ice (4f, :48.80), Klimt (6f, 1:12.40); Wednesday – Prize Exhibit (3f, :38.00), Luminance (4f, :46.80), Songbird (4f, :47.60), Point Piper (5f, 1:00.00), Roosevelt (5f, :58.60).

 

 

 

(Current Through Sunday, August 28, 2016 Inclusive)

Jockey	Mts	1st	2nd	3rd	Win%	In-money%	Money Won
Flavien Prat	174	35	25	21	20%	47%	$2,039,715
Rafael Bejarano	138	28	29	21	20%	57%	$1,913,712
Santiago Gonzalez	186	27	29	21	15%	41%	$1,337,583
Tyler Baze	163	20	21	30	12%	44%	$1,287,854
Kent Desormeaux	116	19	19	15	16%	46%	$1,201,433
Norberto Arroyo, Jr.	97	16	13	10	16%	40%	$769,782
Victor Espinoza	59	14	9	9	24%	54%	$1,536,323
Stewart Elliott	92	14	7	8	15%	32%	$530,740
Tiago Pereira	92	11	11	7	12%	32%	$509,305
Mario Gutierrez	95	10	11	15	11%	38%	$795,993

 

 

 

(Current Through Sunday, August 28, 2016 Inclusive)

Trainer	Sts	1st	2nd	3rd	Win%	In-money%	Money Won
Philip D'Amato	85	19	12	10	22%	48%	$1,285,482
Richard Baltas	77	16	17	9	21%	55%	$928,596
Peter Miller	87	15	14	11	17%	46%	$837,031
Bob Baffert	58	15	12	7	26%	59%	$1,248,865
John W. Sadler	51	11	8	9	22%	55%	$765,840
Mark Glatt	47	10	8	10	21%	60%	$411,434
James M. Cassidy	42	9	4	7	21%	48%	$473,424
Michael Machowsky	20	9	0	1	45%	50%	$266,297
Doug F. O'Neill	110	8	14	18	7%	36%	$647,620
Chris A. Hartman	29	6	5	4	21%	52%	$225,080

 

 

Winning Favorites Report

(Current Through Sunday, August 28, 2016 Inclusive)

 

Winning favorites -- 105 out of 292 -- 35.96%

Winning favorites on dirt -- 75 out of 191 -- 39.27%

Winning favorites on turf -- 30 out of 101 -- 29.70%

Winning odds-on favorites -- 23 out of 46 -- 50.00%

In-the-Money favorites -- 207 out of 292 -- 70.89%

In-the-Money odds-on favorites -- 38 out of 46 -- 82.61%

 

 

Contact: Dan Smith 858-792-4226/Hank Wesch 858-755-1141 ext. 3793