True Royalty © Benoit Photo
Providing leading rider Drayden Van Dyke with his third victory of the afternoon, True Royalty scored a decisive three and and one-half length victory in Sunday’s featured Grade III $100,000 Torrey Pines Stakes for three-year-old fillies.
True Royalty, a daughter of Yes It’s True, surged to the front entering the stretch and drew off to win at odds of 8-1. Just Grazed Me, unbeaten in two starts, including the Fleet Treat Stakes this season, was the 2-1 favorite, and finished second, two and one-half lengths in front of third-place Spring Lily, with Broome fourth in the field of ten fillies. Withdrawn was Wicked Storm.
True Royalty, owned by the Batchelor Family Trust and trained by John Sadler for his eighth stakes win of the meeting, was timed in 1:39.07 for the mile on the main track and returned $19.20, $8 and $5.60 while earning $60,000 with her third win in seven outings and first stakes success. She now has a bankroll of $154,510.
Just Grazed Me returned $4.20 and $3.20, while Spring Lily returned $9.80 to show.
With his saddle triple, Van Dyke now has 33 wins, nine in stakes events, as he seeks his first Del Mar championship. He is four ahead of defending champion Flavien Prat who kept pace by also booting in three winners.
Moving closer to his third Del Mar training title was Peter Miller who sent out four winners in five chances to open a 12-win lead over Doug O’Neill, 28-16, with six days remaining of the 2018 Del Mar summer meet.
There were three perfect tickets in the Pick Six and each was worth $31,242.
DRAYDEN VAN DYKE (True Royalty, winner) – “I was loaded going into that first turn; she was really keen to go on. But at the half-mile (pole) she relaxed. Then we were good to go. She’s a nice filly and she ran big today. I had more left at the finish, too. The summer is going great. I’m trying to stay focused and ride each race as best as I can. I don’t want to think too much about it (the possibility of winning the Del Mar riding title). If I can do it – great. Then I’ll celebrate. But right now I don’t want to be counting any eggs before they hatch.”
TYLER BAZE (Just Grazed Me, second) – “She’s a really nice filly. She ran great again today.”
GARY STEVENS (Spring Lily, third) – “I had a good trip and she put in a good run. You have to be happy with her race.”
JUAN LEYVA, assistant to John Sadler (True Royalty, winner) – “John has been sick all week with a cold and he’s home trying to get over it. We were really high on this horse, we just haven’t been able to get the race that we wanted for her for a long time. We knew she wanted to go two turns and she’s been working great for this race. She hasn’t missed a beat since she’s been down here and she loves it here.“
FRACTIONS: :22.84 :45.57 1:12.93 1:25.71 1:39.07
The stakes win was the (meet-leading) ninth of the summer and second straight (Munny Spunt, 2017) in the Torrey Pines for rider Van Dyke. He now has 20 stakes wins at Del Mar.
The stakes win was the (meet-leading) eighth of the meet and seventh in the Torrey Pines for trainer Sadler. He now has 67 stakes wins at Del Mar, fifth-best all time.
The Batchelor Family Trust is overseen by Joann Batchelor of Calabasas, CA.