Bob Baffert and Jerry Hollendorfer have double entries in both the Bob Hope and Desi Arnaz stakes on the weekend.

 

Which should make for two interesting days as the Hall of Famers send out talented 2-year-olds that, combined, make up more than half the fields in the $100,000 events and portend establishment of rivalries that could carry over into Derby and Oaks races in 2016.

 

Baffert’s representatives in Saturday’s Grade III $100,000 Bob Hope (formerly run as the Hollywood Preview) are Dr. Dorr, a maiden winner last month at Santa Anita, and Toews On Ice, a winner of the Barretts Juvenile at Los Alamitos in September and Speakeasy Stakes at Santa Anita in October after finishing third in his first two career starts here during the summer meeting.

 

Hollendorfer counters with I’malreadythere and Jury for the seven-furlong sprint. I’malreadythere is switched back to the main track after finishing third in the Del Mar Juvenile Turf on the closing weekend of the summer meeting and second in the Zuma Beach in September at Santa Anita. Jury was a first-out maiden winner at Santa Anita last month.

 

Sunday, in the seven-furlong Desi Arnaz for fillies, Baffert has entered Pretty N Cool and Treasuring. Pretty N Cool’s only loss in four starts was to Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies champion Songbird in the Del Mar Debutante. Among her three wins are the Grade II Sorrento Stakes at Del Mar in August and the Grade II Matron at Belmont Park in October.

 

Hollendorfer’s Arnaz duo consists of I’mflatoutsweet, returned to dirt after three turf starts, and Surfside Tiara, who comes in off a victory in the Anoakia Stakes at Santa Anita.

 

“They’re all doing well,” Baffert assistant Jim Barnes, who will handle the weekend saddling duties, said here Thursday morning. Baffert will be in Tucson on Saturday night where his alma mater, the University of Arizona, will honor him at halftime of its football game against No. 10 Utah.

 

The pressures and responsibilities of guiding American Pharoah’s “Grand Slam” 2015 campaign which concluded with the Breeders’ Cup Classic may be over for Baffert and Barnes, but the work doesn’t end.

 

“No vacation,” Barnes said, looking out on a clear, crisp and sunny Del Mar morning. “This is my vacation.”

 

The Hope Field from the rail: Dr. Dorr (Mike Smith, 3-1), Jury (Rafael Bejarano, 5-2), Street Vision (Santiago Gonzalez, 8-1), Toews On Ice (Martin Garcia, 2-1), Mac Daddy Mac (Gary Stevens, 8-1), On Fire (Victor Espinoza, 15-1) and I’malreadythere (Tyler Baze, 8-1).

 

The Arnaz field from the rail: Surfside Tiara (Rafael Bejarano), Street Fancy (Mike Smith), Lucky Folie (Gary Stevens), Patriotic Diamond (Santiago Gonzalez), I’mflatoutsweet (James Graham), Treasuring (Victor Espinoza) and Pretty N Cool (Martin Garcia).

 

 

Jockey Patrick Valenzuela, who last rode competitively 22 months ago in California and had expressed hopes of a comeback during the Crosby Meeting, has been named to ride two entries at Louisiana’s Delta Downs Nov. 19, according to the Paulick Report.

 

Valenzuela, 53, was suspended Feb. 7, 2014 for failing to appear before the California Horse Racing Board over charges that he did not show up for a pair of scheduled mounts at Santa Anita two weeks earlier.

 

The five-time Del Mar riding champion, who guided Sunday Silence to Kentucky Derby and Preakness victories in 1989 and has seven Breeders’ Cup victories  to his credit, was granted a license to exercise horses in a CHRB ruling issued on August 6. The ruling stipulated that Valenzuela’s jockey license would  remain suspended through October 31 and an application for reinstatement then would be subject to CHRB review and procedures.

 

On October 28, the eve of the start of the Bing Crosby meeting, Valenzuela said he had his weight down to 123 with a goal of 119 and a return to riding early this month. A CHRB spokesman said there was no record of Valenzuela having taken steps for reinstatement in California.

 

 

 

Hall of Fame trainer Jerry Hollendorfer and Doug O’Neill are both on final approach to milestone victories.

 

Hollendorfer is six shy of 7,000 career wins and has two entered today at Golden Gate Fields and one (Seattle Serenade, 1^st race, 9-5 favorite) here.

 

O’Neill has 1,990 career victories and chances to enhance the total with Courageous Dave (4^th, 9-5 favorite) and El Nino Terrible (7^th, 4-1) here today.

 

 

Trainer Art Sherman said Thursday morning that 2014 Horse of the Year California Chrome is making faster progress than might have been expected on the comeback trail from a bone bruise injury in mid-summer and will have his second work Saturday at Los Alamitos.

 

“He’s coming back quick; if there are no problems he’ll be ready by January,” Sherman said. “I’ll be up there for the work. He’ll probably go another quarter mile and gallop out three-eighths like he did before, but gallop out a little stronger this time.”

 

The initial goal for the 2014 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner, who closed out his Horse of the Year campaign with a win in the Hollywood Derby here in November, is a return to the $10 million Dubai World Cup in March. California Chrome was the runner-up to Prince Bishop in the world’s richest race earlier this year.

 

“When he gets back from Dubai, the Pacific Classic is the next one we’ll be pointing for,” Sherman said.

 

 

CLOSERS – Thirteen is enough for My Monet. Trainer Ricky Agarie said after the victory in Sunday’s $100,000 Betty Grable Stakes that the 4-year-old daughter of Decarchy, owned by Kenji Morinaga of Arcadia, would be given a long rest. A well-deserved one since the Betty Grable was the 13^th start of 2015. Her fourth win of the year, worth $57,000, boosted her yearly earnings to $239,788 and career to $335,838 … With “mixed emotions,” Del Mar Thoroughbred Club CEO and President Joe Harper  passed on the word of the retirement of Director of Group Sales Jacquelyn King after more than 30  years with the DMTC. “And for every one of those years she has been not just invaluable to this company but has been a dear friend to all of us,” Harper said in an email.

 

 

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