Take the One O One © Benoit Photo
Taking the shortest way home, even-money favored Take the One O One rallied on the rail turning into the stretch to take the lead and continued on gamely to win the featured $150,000 Real Good Deal Stakes under jockey Joe Talamo Friday.
Take the One O One, owned by Jay Em Ess Stable and trained by Brian Koriner, held off the game late challenge of Daddysprize to win by a half-length in 1:23.40 for the seven furlongs. Third was 45-1 longshot Shaymin, who closed from last place to be one and one quarter lengths behind the runner-up and a length ahead of fourth-place Fashionably Fast in the field of seven California-bred three-year-olds. Psycho Dar was withdrawn.
Smiling Angelo, unbeaten in two starts and second choice at 2-1, flattened out after setting the pace and finished fifth.
Take the One O One, a son of Acclamation, scored his fourth victory in nine starts, with only a single race in which he was worse than third, seventh in the Del Mar Juvenile Turf last September.
Take the One O One returned $4.20, $2.80 and $2.60 and first money of $85,500 increased his earnings to $341,181. In his previous outing, he won the Snow Chief Stakes at Santa Anita at nine furlongs on the grass.
Runner-up Daddysprize, with Tyler Baze, paid $4.40 and $3.20, while Shaymin returned $7 to show.
Del Mar newcomer Geovanni Franco was the day’s riding star, booting in three winners – Royal Asscher at $21.20 in the first, Naughty Sophie at $4.60 in the fourth and Indian Gulch at $8.80 in the eighth.
There were 29 perfect tickets in Friday’s Pick Six and each was worth $19,523. With a two-day carryover of $165,582 and “new” money of $741,440, the Pick Six pool totaled $907,022.
JOE TALAMO (Take the One O One, winner) -- “I thought I was going to go outside in this one, but the way the race set up, I was down inside. He was comfortable in there and we weren’t getting any kickback. At the three-eighths (pole), I asked him and he went. He was all runner from there.”
TYLER BAZE (Daddysprize, second) – “My horse ran real good. The winner got through inside and that was unlucky for me.”
MARIO GUTIERREZ (Shaymin, third) – “Good try for my horse. I could see we were running for second or third though, so we gave it our best for that.”
BRIAN KORINER (Take the One O One, winner) – “The fractions on this racetrack, you see :44 for the half and 1:09 and four for three-quarters, that’s quick on this racetrack. It’s no wonder (runner-up Daddysprize) was coming at us. I think the horse (Take the One O One) really wants to go a lot farther. The plan was to go to the Del Mar Derby. So we’ll figure it out and see where we go from here.”
FRACTIONS: :22.57 :44.99 1:09.89 1:23.40
The stakes win was the second (Big Bad Leroybrown, 2007) in the Real Good Deal for Talamo, but his first of the 2018 season. He now has 49 stakes wins at Del Mar.
The stakes win was the first in the Real Good Deal and first of the meet for Koriner. He now has six stakes wins at Del Mar.
Jay Em Ess Stable is the nom du course for Samantha Siegel of Beverly Hills, CA.