Nuovo Record © Benoit Photo
Nuovo Record, the first Japanese-bred Thoroughbred to ever win* at Del Mar, made a triumphant debut at the seaside track Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, with an exciting nose victory over even-money favored Arles in the featured Grade III $100,000 Red Carpet Handicap.
Piloted by regular jockey Yasunari Iwata, Nuovo Record got up in the final stride to win the narrowest of photo finishes over Arles and her rider, Joel Rosario. Third, a length farther back, was longshot Swear By It, with Into The Mystic fourth in the field of ten older fillies and mares competing at the marathon distance of a mile and three-eighths over Del Mar’s infield grass course.
Nuovo Record, a five-year-old daughter of the Sunday Silence stallion Heart’s Cry, came to Del Mar to train shortly after finishing a non-threatening eleventh in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf at Santa Anita November 5. She had a single workout over the Del Mar turf November 20, traveling five furlongs in 1:02 2/5 in her last prep for the Red Carpet Handicap.
Nuovo Record, owned and bred by Reiko Hara and trained by Makoto Saito, went postward the 5-1 third choice and returned $12.40, $4.80 and $4.80 after her sixth victory in 20 lifetime races. First money of $60,000 increased her earnings to $4,993,397. Time for the distance was 2:15.56.
Runner-up Arles, an eastern invader from the barn of trainer Graham Motion, paid $3 and $2.40, while Swear By It, another entrant from the east coast, returned $7.40 to show.
Trainer Peter Miller and jockey Norberto Arroyo, Jr., had a successful Thanksgiving, registering three wins each. Miller’s winners were Poshsky in the third, Drover Crazy in the fourth and Bad Ju Ju in the sixth. Arroyo rode both Poshsky and Bad Ju Ju and also took eighth race on Big Champion.
There were 81 perfect tickets in the Pick Six Thursday and each paid $4,385. The Pick Six Single Ticket Jackpot is $116,092 entering Friday’s program which begins at 12:30 p.m.
YASUNARI IWATA (Nuovo Record, winner) – (He speaks no English. All quotes relayed through an interpreter.)
“We were drawn down on the inside and I wanted to stay there – to save ground. This is a tight course and I wanted to save all I could. It was an ideal trip that way. The first time around she was running well. Then when we came into the stretch the second time, the horses in front of me fanned out. I thought they would and I went outside. My mare has a really good late kick. She showed it today.”
JOEL ROSARIO (Arles, second) – “Tough one. What are you going to do? She ran great. Too good to get beat. But sometimes you do.”
NORBERTO ARROYO, JR. (Swear by It, third) “A really good effort by her. We had a little trouble the first time around in the stretch when a horse dropped down on her, but she recovered and got right back in it. A good race for her.”
MAKOTO SAITO (Nuovo Record, winner) – (via interpreter) “Today, she ran as well as she had in Japan and we are so glad that she could make it happen the same way in the U.S. Outside the Breeders’ Cup she has always run well. This time some horses went to the front so she could stalk and the race went as I was thinking it would. I think we will have even bigger expectations for her next year and we would like to come back to Del Mar for the Breeders’ Cup.”
FRACTIONS: :24.49 :49.74 1:15.26 1:40.02 2:03.77 2:15.56
The stakes win was the first at Del Mar by all parties involved.
Nuovo Record is the first Japanese-bred racehorse to win* at Del Mar.
* An earlier version of this release incorrectly stated the winner was the first Japanese-bred racehorse to compete at Del Mar. Silent Name (JPN) competed at Del Mar in the Eddie Read Handicap July 23, 2006.