DEL MAR LEADERS
(Through Sunday)
Jockeys / Wins
Umberto Rispoli / 9
Juan Hernandez / 8
Antonio Fresu / 8
Tiago Pereira / 7
Hector Berrios / 6
Kazushi Kimura / 6
Trainers / Wins
Mark Glatt / 7
Doug O’Neill / 5
Steve Miyadi / 4
Michael McCarthy / 4
George Papaprodromou / 4
Peter Miller / 4
Phil D’Amato / 4
WEEKEND STAKES
DEL MAR
Saturday
• $100,000, Grade III Native Diver Stakes, 3-year-olds and up, 1⅛ miles
Sunday
• $100,000, Grade III Red Carpet Stakes, fillies and mares, 3 and up, 1⅜ miles on turf
LOS ALAMITOS
Sunday
• 2-year-old quarter horses compete in trials for the Dec. 15 Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity
DOWN THE STRETCH
• Mixto, who won the Pacific Classic and then was outclassed when he finished 11th behind Sierra Leone in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, returns in Saturday’s Native Diver Stakes at Del Mar. Mixto (Antonio Fresu riding) faces in-form Ultra Power (Juan Hernandez), Mirahmadi (Martin Garcia) and Tarantino (Edwin Maldonado) in a field of six. Bob Baffert, trainer of Ultra Power and Mirahmadi, won the past three runnings of the Native Diver with Azul Coast, Defunded and Mr Fisk.
• Reminder: Del Mar won’t run on Thanksgiving Day, ending a Southern California racing tradition that dates to when fall racing at Hollywood Park debuted in 1981. Thanksgiving had become one of Del Mar’s lowest-attended afternoons. The Nov. 29-Dec. 1 final week of Del Mar’s Bing Crosby Meet will feature six graded stakes, including the Grade II Hollywood Turf Cup on Friday, Grade I Hollywood Derby on Saturday and Grade I Matriarch on Sunday.
• The Santa Anita winter stakes schedule released Thursday includes something overdue: a race named for Hall of Fame jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. The San Antonio Stakes, one of six graded stakes on opening day of the Dec. 26-June 15 season, now is the $200,000, Grade II Laffit Pincay Jr. Stakes. Some stakes have been eliminated and others’ purses cut, including the March 1 Santa Anita Handicap from $400,000 to $300,000 and the April 5 Santa Anita Derby from $750,000 to $500,000. But Santa Anita and Thoroughbred Owners of California officials said non-stakes purses will be higher than 2024 levels at the Arcadia track.
• Los Alamitos quarter-horse racing officials came under fire over horse welfare issues at the California Horse Racing Board meeting Thursday in Sacramento. Board chairman Greg Ferraro cited injury rates at the Orange County track and threatened to call a hearing “to shut you down – we can do it” if they aren’t reduced. Board members said they would follow up after a representative of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) presented evidence of Los Al jockeys getting away with participating in unsanctioned, unsafe racing at California bush tracks.
• More trouble: CHRB executive director Scott Chaney told the board that horse-racing wagering handle in the state declined 17% in September and 11% in October, compared to the same months in 2023, and is down 6% in the year to date. Part of the problem is the closure of Golden Gate Fields in the San Francisco Bay Area. Struggles for the new non-fair meet at Pleasanton continued this week with Friday racing canceled in anticipation of wet weather.
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• Jayson Werth, the retired outfielder for the Dodgers and three other major-league teams, is one of two winners of the 2024 New Owner of the Year award announced by the Jockey Club and the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association. Werth is a co-owner of Dornoch, the Belmont Stakes winner in June. Also honored is John Stewart, owner of Grade I winner Didia and British Group 1 winner Goliath.
• The official racing data site Equibase said it has updated its helpful glossary of terms found in thoroughbred result chart footnotes, striving to make the terms more current and consistent. If Eskimo languages have 50 words for snow, racetrackers appear to have 17 terms for trouble at the start, ranging in severity from “broke in” to “refused to break,” and 22 ways of describing trouble in the running of a race, from “brushed” to “clipped heels.”
— Kevin Modesti