QUALITY STAKES SCHEDULE ON TAP FOR 2024 BING CROSBY FALL MEET
Del Mar’s Bing Crosby Season begins Thursday with five weeks of top thoroughbred horse racing on tap including the 2024 Breeders’ Cup. Fourteen championship races will be run on Friday and Saturday but once the dust has settled and the champions are crowned, Del Mar presents a stakes schedule that is second to none in the month of November. The stakes always attract more top horses from across the nation, some seeking that one last win to add to the resume that might convince the judges to look their way come Eclipse Award time.
This year’s fall stakes schedule is the same as last year with one notable exception. There will be no Thanksgiving racing this year. Otherwise it’s the same number of stakes on the same dates providing trainers the consistency they desire.
“We stack a lot of stakes quality in a short period of time,” says Del Mar racing secretary David Jerkens. “It’s obviously on people’s radar. Everybody knows the Hollywood Derby is your last chance to run 3-year-olds on the turf. For certain individuals it’s on their radar when they plan throughout the year. If they’re going to campaign a horse on a specific schedule they know they can conclude (the year) with our races.”
Admittedly, most champions come out of the Breeders’ Cup but there have been past instances of titles being undecided and that’s where Del Mar plays a big part. The most notable happened in 2014 when California Chrome won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes but then finished fourth in the Belmont, sixth in the G1 Pennsylvania Derby and a close third in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Horse of the Year was still up in the air when trainer Art Sherman brought his big chestnut to Del Mar for the G1 Hollywood Derby and he won, capturing his first race on the grass and tipping the Horse of the Year title in his favor, the first of two the Cal-bred would win during his career.
Even in years when the champions have been decided, the stakes run at the seaside oval have attracted horses from such top name barns as Chad Brown, Bill Mott, Brad Cox and Graham Motion. Christophe Clement and Shug McGaughey also have been known to enter a horse or two during Del Mar’s Crosby meet.
The stakes schedule kicks off opening day with the $100,000 Let It Ride Stakes for 3-year olds going a mile on the turf.
Then on Breeders’ Cup “Future Stars Friday” there will be four stakes on the undercard, all for juveniles, and on Saturday the undercard consists of two graded stakes races, the G3 Goldikova for fillies and mares going a mile on the turf and the G3 Bayakoa for fillies and mares going a mile on the dirt.
The Crosby fall meet continues the next weekend with two more stakes: The $100,000 Cary Grant on Saturday, November 9 for Cal-bred 3-years-olds and up going seven furlongs and on Sunday the $100,000 Betty Grable Stakes for Cal-bred fillies and mares also going seven furlongs.
The juveniles are back in the spotlight the following weekend with the $100,000 Desi Arnaz Stakes on Saturday, November 16 and the G3 Bob Hope on Sunday.
The G3 Native Diver returns on Saturday the 23rd. It’s the 47th running of the 1 1/8 mile event on the main track for 3-year-olds and up.
With no Thanksgiving racing this year at Del Mar, the start of the Fall Turf Festival and the G3 Red Carpet have been moved up to the 24th, the Sunday before the holiday weekend. Fillies and mares will contest the 1 3/8 mile event on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course.
The Turf Festival continues with the 43rd running of the G2 Hollywood Turf Cup on Black Friday, November 29. Three graded stakes are slated for Saturday, the 30th including the feature, the 84th running of the G1 Hollywood Derby. Also on the card will be the G2 Seabiscuit for 3-year-olds and up going 1 1/16 miles and the G3 Jimmy Durante for 2-year olds fillies going a mile.
Finally on Sunday, December 1 the meet wraps up with a bang with three more graded stakes highlighted by the 44th running of the G1 Matriarch for fillies and mares going one mile. The stakes action on closing day also includes the $100,000 Stormy Liberal turf sprint and the G3 Cecil B. DeMille, a one mile turf test for juveniles.
Excluding the Breeders’ Cup, $3,150,000 in stakes purses will be up for grabs this fall at Del Mar. Only time will tell if they’ll produce a champion or two again this year.
HEAVY FOG A NUISANCE FOR EARLY MORNING TRAINING
Chances are there will be no sign of it by the time the races go off Opening Day Thursday and on Breeders’ Cup Friday and Saturday. But those who show up for the morning workouts are all too familiar with the thick fog that has shrouded the Del Mar racetrack in the days leading up to the World Championships.
The fog has limited visibility notably, becoming so bad that training was suspended for a time last week for the safety of the horses and the riders. Those seated in the grandstand couldn’t see a thing past the tote board and the backstretch was completely covered in the fog. Photographers from around the world are at Del Mar this week but their morning work has been hindered. Can’t shoot what you can’t see.
Fog is not unusual for the seaside oval. It’s a part of everyday life on the coastline. It rolls in off the Pacific Ocean overnight and tends to linger, sometimes until nine or 10 in the morning. Last week the fog was exceptionally thick, making life for the clockers up on the sixth floor a real nightmare.
“You can’t see anything,” clocker John Malone tells us. “There’s not much you can do about it. Basically you just have to shut down. At Hollywood Park we used to have someone on the backside go ‘three, two, one’ as they were leaving the five (eighths pole) but it wasn’t reliable.
“Last week we had fog three days in a row,” Malone continues. “I couldn’t see the sixteenth pole.”
Racing is filled with stories of thick fog and the high jinx it induces. In 1990, a rider named Sylvester Carmouche (no relation to Kendrick) faced felony charges after he held his horse back as the rest of the field ran ahead of him into a thick fog at Delta Downs. They have a five-furlong track, so one-mile races start out of a chute at the far end of the facility. On this particular day, fog covered the chute and the horses were not visible to the crowd, or the stewards, until they were midway down the stretch.
Carmouche and his horse, Landing Officer, apparently stumbled out of the gate and rider and horse found themselves all alone in the chute while the rest of the field was well on their one-mile journey. So, Carmouche simply waited at the top of the stretch, out of sight from everyone, until he heard the sound of the thundering hooves as the field approached in the turn. Then he booted his horse into stride and lo and behold, he popped out of the heavy fog with an insurmountable lead.
A few days later, Carmouche was arrested on felony charges of theft by fraud.
Clockers and stewards aren’t the only ones whose jobs are affected by fog. Track announcers have been known to fumble their way once the horses disappear into the thick white mist, filling time with phantom race calls until they reappear in the stretch.
“A beautiful sight as Thoroughbreds stride down the backstretch,” was one of Tom Durkin’s calls on a soupy day in New York. “That is absolutely beautiful. Horses in flight in full competition.”
Del Mar’s Larry Colmus got to call a race in thick fog at Monmouth Park telling his viewers, “There’s the sound of the gate. That means their off and running in…some sort of order.”
Most mornings, once the sun rises and heats things up, it burns off the heavy fog covering Del Mar. So, Larry and the thousands attending the races shouldn’t have an issue with it come post time this weekend.
COOLING OUT: Most of the European horses arrived at Del Mar over the weekend and are expected to be out of quarantine by tomorrow morning’s training session. While still many of the east coast horses have yet to arrive, there have been sightings on the backside of trainers Chad Brown, Todd Pletcher and Bill Mott…Notable works, all on the dirt: Saturday – Bentornato (4f, :49.20); Post Time (4f, :48.80); Saddle Up Jessie (4f, 48.60); Sunday – Skelly (3f, :38.80); Society (3f, :36.40); Didia (4f, :50.80); Mufasa (4f, :47,80); Scylla (4f, :50.80); War Like Goddess (4f, :48.60); Katonah (5f, 1:01.00); Mixto (5f, 1:00.40); Raging Torrent (5f, 1:02.40); Monday – Cogburn (3f, :37.80) and Gun Pilot (3f, :36.60).