David Jerkens © Zoe Metz for Del Mar Thoroughbred Club

 

 

In theory, having the 2015 Bing Crosby meeting open on the Thursday before the Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland and mingle races with the Cup events on Friday and Saturday was supposed to be a business enhancer.

 

In reality, it wasn’t. Opening week numbers were down from the successful inaugural Crosby season of 2014. The focus of major stables and major players was on Kentucky and Del Mar had to wait a week or two before it was returned to California.

 

Which is why Del Mar Thoroughbred Club racing secretary David Jerkens is bullish on a return to the 2014 schedule when Bing Crosby III opens Friday, one week after the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita.

 

“Last year was a completely different scenario, with the Breeders’ Cup having more of an effect on us than we thought it would,” Jerkens said Tuesday “The schedule this year is identical to 2014 and the response from the horsemen in terms of stall requests has been positive.”

 

By Tuesday, around a dozen trainers – among them veterans Bill Spawr, Eddie Truman and Bob Hess – had moved contingents down from bases at Santa Anita. Hess has an allotment of 39 stalls, Spawr 28 and Truman 22.

 

Doug O’Neill, Phil D’Amato, Peter Miller and Richard Baltas, the 1-2-3 and co-fourth place finishers in the 2015 Crosby trainer standings, will be stabling 25-30 horses each for the meeting. There were 220 horses in Del Mar’s stable area by Wednesday morning and Jerkens projects an equine occupancy of 400-plus on race days.

 

Many runners will be shipped in on or just before race days from bases at Santa Anita, Los Alamitos, San Luis Rey Downs and other training centers.

 

“That’s a healthy number,” Jerkens said. “The meeting is now part of the fabric of the Southern California circuit. Horsemen have gotten accustomed to the schedule and can make plans knowing what it’s like and what to expect.”

 

The 2015 meeting encompassed 20 racing days, five more than this season. The opening day program, finalized Tuesday, had a total of 82 horses entered in nine races, including four entrants that were given also-eligible status when three races were oversubscribed.

 

“We averaged 8.7 per race for opening day before scratches, which is good,” Jerkens said.

 

 

 

Peter Miller and Rafael Bejarano were the top trainer and rider, respectively, in the Santa Anita Autumn meeting which ended Sunday.

 

Miller led the Santa Anita meeting from gate to wire, his 23 wins being three more than closest pursuers Bob Baffert and Doug O’Neill. It was Miller’s second title at the Arcadia track.

 

Miller took the training title in the 2014 Crosby season with 15 wins, five more than Mike Puype and finished tied for second in 2015 with D’Amato, two behind O’Neill.

 

Miller has two Summer Meeting titles, one shared with Jerry Hollendorfer, and has finished a close second the last two years. Miller, a Carlsbad resident who trains out of San Luis Rey Downs, said he hopes to keep the momentum going at the upcoming meeting.

 

“We feel like we’ve got a lot of live horses and we’ve got a good group of grass horses so we’re really looking forward to it,” Miller said. His stakes candidates for the meeting include Belvoir Bay, Monster Bea, California Diamond and Richard’s Boy.

 

Miller ranks 33^rd in the North American trainer standings for 2016 according to Equibase figures with 74 wins from 442 starters and earnings of $3,554,711.

 

“It’s been up and down, like a roller-coaster, as it usually is in this business,” Miller said. “A little scratchy at the start, but we’ve been doing well lately and hope to keep that going. I thought the (Del Mar Summer) meeting was a really good meet for us.”

 

Bejarano notched his 15^th Santa Anita riding title with 22 wins, two more than runner-up Kent Desormeaux. The Autumn Meet title was Bejarano’s 32^nd overall and his 27^th in Southern California. Bejarano had two stakes wins, finishing three behind both Desormeaux and Flavien Prat.

 

Bejarano, a 34-year-old native of Peru, is a five-time defending champion of the Del Mar Summer Meeting – last summer’s shared with Prat – and defending champion for the Bing Crosby meeting. Bejarano had 20 wins a year ago, two more than Santiago Gonzalez.

 

Sobradora Inc, a 4-year-old Argentine import who won her U.S. debut in the Osunitas Stakes here on August 16, was made the 9-5 favorite on the morning line of oddsmaker Russ Hudak for the opening day featured $75,000 Kathryn Crosby Stakes for older fillies and mares at 1 1/16 miles on the turf.

 

Trained by Simon Callaghan for owner Katsumi Yoshida, Sobradora Inc has made two starts in graded stakes since the Osunitas, finishing behind Avenge in both the Grade II John C. Mabee (fifth) on September 4 and the Grade I Rodeo Drive (10^th) on October 1 at Santa Anita.

 

The field from the rail: Amboseli (Mike Smith, 3-1), Keri Belle (Norberto Arroyo, Jr., 5-2), Dressed to a T (Mario Gutierrez, 10-1), Do the Dance (Tyler Baze, 15-1), Sobradora Inc (Rafael Bejarano, 9-5) and Glory (Flavien Prat, 4-1).

 

 

 

Camino Del Paraiso will put a three-race winning streak, started in August at the Summer Meeting, on the line against five rivals in Saturday’s $75,000 Let It Ride Stakes for three-year-olds at one mile on the turf.

 

Trained by O.J. Jauregui, and owned by Glen Road Racing and partners, Camino Del Paraiso, a California-bred son of Suances, notched his first victory in his ninth career start on August 17 here over the same course as the Let It Ride. He tacked on the two subsequent wins at Golden Gate Fields, both at 1 1/8 miles, in September and October. The first was a six-length allowance-level romp, the second a three-length score in an allowance optional claimer.

 

Post positions were to be drawn later Wednesday. The field, in alphabetical order with trainers and jockeys: Barhanpour (Leonard Powell/Mike Smith), Camino Del Paraiso (O.J. Jauregui/Ricardo Gonzalez), Curlin Rules (John Sadler/Tyler Baze), Defiantly (Craig Dollase/Gary Stevens), Little Scotty (Neil Drysdale/ Kent Desormeaux) and Mittersill (Patrick Gallagher/Flavien Prat).

 

 

 

Hall of Fame rider Gary Stevens, seventh on Del Mar’s all-time stakes win list with 93, one behind Bill Shoemaker, has one mount scheduled on opening day and figures to be a fixture at the meeting.

 

But Stevens, 53, who is booked aboard Shy (7-2) in Friday’s fourth race, told the Daily Racing Form that he plans to venture from his usual Southern California base afterward and won’t ride the winter-spring meeting at Santa Anita.

 

He’s headed for Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas for the January 13 start of the meeting there.

 

“It’s more money, more opportunities and more horses,” Stevens said. “I don’t have a lot of business.”

 

 

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