Game Warrior is just that in opening day upset at Del Mar
DEL MAR — Followers of trainer Peter Miller had a profitable opening day at Del Mar Friday.
Not only did Miller’s 19-1 longshot Game Warrior survive the stretch rush of odds-on favorite Iron Man Cal to win the featured $100,000 Oceanside Stakes, the trainer scored earlier with 9-1 pick Tejon Pass on a day of big prices.
Favorites won just two of the 10 races with horses ranked 5-1 or longer scoring seven wins, with two winners checking in at odds of approximately 20-1.
“Winning is good,” Miller said in the winner’s circle.
But winning isn’t easy. And favorite Iron Man Cal might have triumphed had the son of Collected not bobbled badly leaving the starting gate of the one-mile turf test for 3-year-olds.
Iron Man Cal trailed the field much of the way until jockey Antonio Fresu found an opening along the rail and in the stretch and mounted a determined charge that came with a half-length of overtaking the winner.
“It was a good race for Game Warrior,” said jockey Hector Berrios, who also had two wins on opening day. “He was relaxed all the way. We had a little bit of trouble in the stretch … we got bumped some. But it wasn’t too bad. When I asked him he went. He was strong.”
Not that Miller had a visual of Game Warrior at a key moment. “I didn’t pick him up,” said the trainer. “It was my son who spotted him splitting horses. Hector gave him a superb ride.
“He got him to the rail by the first turn out of the seven hole. He saved all the ground. Then he split horses in a tight opening.”
Game Warrior paid $40.60 to win. But he was just the third-longest play of the afternoon.
Ribbons paid $59.40 to win the day’s finale while producing the first Del Mar win for Italian-born newcomer Mirco Demuro. And Lino’s Angel (Tyler Baze) paid $45.40 to win the seventh.
Opening day attendance was 21,209 with a handle of $21.22 million, marking a 6.5% gain in on-track handle from opening day a year ago.
Opening weekend continues Saturday with two stakes — the $200,000 Grade II San Clemente Handicap for 3-year-old fillies at a mile on the Jimmy Durante turf course and the $100,000 Wickerr, a one-mile turf test for older horses.
The San Clemente is seen as a prep for next month’s Grade I Del Mar Oaks.
D’Amato and Bob Baffert each has two fillies in the San Clemente with D’Amato fielding the morning line 8-5 favorite in Thought Process.
A daughter of Collected, Thought Process won the $100,000 Juvenile Fillies Turf at Del Mar last summer and captured the Grade III Surfer Girl at Santa Anita a month later before finishing a disappointing ninth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Del Mar last Nov. 1. She has raced only once since then, winning an allowance at Santa Anita in June.
“That was an impressive comeback race,” said D’Amato. “It was a good prep for the San Clemente. And she likes this track.”
D’Amato’s other entry in the San Clemente is fourth-favorite Jungle Peace (Fresu), which is coming off a third-place finish in the Grade III Honeymoon in May at Santa Anita, which snapped a three-race winning streak.
Baffert will have third-favorite Casalu (Kasuzhi Kimura), who is seeking a third straight win.
The Wickerr features the return of Beyond Brilliant, a 7-year-old son of Twirling Candy who hasn’t raced since 2022 due to an injury.
Trainer John Shirreffs said Beyond Brilliant has been idled for more than 2½ years after suffering a torn tendon. Before suffering the injury, Beyond Brilliant had five wins, four seconds and two thirds in 16 career starts with earnings of more than $776,000. Three of the wins had been in graded stakes.
While Beyond Brilliant is a 7-2, morning-line favorite in the Wickerr, eight of his 10 opponents ran against graded stakes competition in their most recent outings.
There will be some split interest at Del Mar Saturday. California’s best-known horse, Journalism — the Preakness Stakes winner and runner-up in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont — will be racing at Monmouth Park in the Haskell Stakes.