DEL MAR — Bill Mott’s success in occasional forays to Del Mar over three decades as one of America’s top thoroughbred trainers would be the envy of almost any rival. He won a $1 million Pacific Classic with Go Between in 2008, a $1 million Breeders’ Cup Distaff with Scylla in 2025, and a handful of other Grade I stakes at the San Diego County track.
The fact Mott’s disappointments at Del Mar are remembered at least as well as his triumphs is a measure of the high standard he has set as a Racing Hall of Fame enshrinee and five-time national trainer of the year. Cigar’s loss to Dare and Go in the 1996 Pacific Classic, preventing a record-breaking 17th win in a row, is known as one of the most famous upsets in racing history. The fever that kept Sovereignty out of the Breeders’ Cup here last fall was the one setback of season for the Kentucky Derby winner and Horse of the Year, leaving unfinished business to fuel his current campaign.
It could go either way for Mott – major victory or major letdown – when Knightsbridge, a 5-year-old he trains for Godolphin, goes into the Del Mar starting gate at about 6:30 p.m. Saturday for the 36th Pacific Classic.
Knightsbridge and jockey Junior Alvarado are solid 5-2 favorites on the morning line, based mostly on a breakout performance in last month’s Monmouth Cup in New Jersey that produced a 10¼-length romp and a 122 Beyer speed figure, the highest such rating for any horse since Flightline earned a 126 in the 2022 Pacific Classic.
Maybe his mixed memories of Del Mar are one reason Mott, 73, has seemed restrained in public comments about Knightsbridge’s prospects at the Pacific Classic distance of 1¼ miles.
“Will he do that consistently?” Mott said, reportedly laughing, to David Grening of the Daily Racing Form the day after the 1⅛-mile Monmouth Cup. “He’s a pretty fast horse.” Mott added: Now, we don’t know how good he is at a mile and a quarter.”
Although the New York-based Mott didn’t plan to be at Del Mar on Saturday, his latest joust with this track is one of many storylines for this Pacific Classic.
Richard Mandella, a Hall of Famer forever linked to Mott because he trained Dare and Go, still talks about how Mott went out of his way to congratulate Mandella after Cigar’s defeat.
“He’s a class act. He always has been,” Mandella, who saddles Subsanador in pursuit of the trainer’s fifth Pacific Classic, said Friday morning at Del Mar. “I’ve always admired the work he’s done. The racing world does. He’s one of those you put at the highest level.”
“I’d like to beat him again,” Mandella said with a wry smile.
Barring scratches, the 11-horse field will be the largest for a Pacific Classic since Game On Dude dusted 11 opponents in 2013. The 10th race on an 11-race card starting at 2 p.m., it lines up this way from the rail out:
1. Om N Joy, jockey Kent Desormeaux, morning-line odds 20-1; 2. Forged Steel, Edwin Gonzalez, 5-1; 3. Finger, Keita Tosaki, 8-1; 4. Subsanador, Mike Smith, 12-1; 5. Malarchuk, Umberto Rispoli, 10-1; 6. Original Sin, Juan Hernandez, 15-1; 7. Hit Show, Florent Geroux, 6-1; 8. British Isles, Diego Herrera, 12-1; 9. Navajo Warrior, Micah Husbands, 8-1; 10. Full Serrano, Joel Rosario, 8-1, and 11. Knightsbridge.
It has to be one of the most diverse fields ever for the 1¼-mile race for 3-year-olds and up that was inaugurated in 1991 as Del Mar’s answer to the Santa Anita Handicap and Hollywood Gold Cup, and has since eclipsed those races in terms of purse and prestige.
The top six horses on the morning line set by Del Mar’s John Lies made their latest starts in New York state, New Jersey, Nebraska and Japan, and most of those are trained out of state, meaning there’s a chance the Pacific Classic will have a non-California-based winner for the second year in a row (following Fierceness in 2025) and fourth time overall (after Go Between in 2008 and Dullahan in 2012).
Finger, a Japan-based son of Gun Runner coming off a victory in the Tokyo Derby, would be the first horse to win the Pacific Classic in his first start in North America. The youngest horse in the race, Finger would be the seventh 3-year-old to win the Pacific Classic, joining a list that includes Best Pal in 1991, General Challenge in 1999, Came Home in 2002, Shared Belief in 2014 and, most recently, Arabian Knight in 2023.
Battling Finger for the door prize for traveling the farthest is Original Sin jockey Juan Hernandez, who was in England on Friday to ride Bacio to victory in the Nunthorpe Stakes at York, then boarded a helicopter to get to Heathrow Airport in time for a flight scheduled to reach LAX late Friday night.
Om N Joy, the longest shot in the race, is the first female in a decade to be entered in the Pacific Classic and will try to be the second female to win it (Beholder did so emphatically in 2015). Om N Joy would be the eighth California-born horse to win (the last was California Chrome in 2016).
Two of the California-based horses have won million-dollar races before, but Full Serrano and Subsanador are on losing streaks since their successes in, respectively, the 2024 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Del Mar and 2024 California Crown at Santa Anita. Either 7-year-old would be the oldest horse to win a Pacific Classic.
Rosario, Del Mar’s leading jockey and a two-time Pacific Classic winner, said he’s confident Full Serrano can run with the early leaders and withstand the pace.
“It’s a strong race, but he’s a nice horse and he knows the track,” Rosario said of Full Serrano, who ran a close second to Mixto in the 2024 Pacific Classic.
Mandella said Subsanador, troubled in three straight losses, is training “as good as a horse could be.” But the trainer knows Knightsbridge will be hard to top.
“Mott’s horse ran off the screen the other day,” Mandella said. “He might (be able to) beat anybody. Who knows?”