Gold Phoenix is a different kind of Del Mar legend after a photo-finish victory in the Eddie Read Stakes on Sunday made him the first six-time stakes winner in the track’s history, breaking a record established by a horse named How Now in 1960 and later equaled by Admirably, Flawlessly, Midnight Storm and Formidable Man.
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An 8-year-old gelding, Gold Phoenix has had an amazing career since debuting in 2021 in his native Ireland, competing for owners Agave Racing, Little Red Feather Racing, Sterling Stables and Marsha Naify, trainer Phil D’Amato and, now, jockey Hector Berros, his eighth rider. His 34 starts have produced 13 wins, 11 at the graded-stakes level, at six different distances from 7 furlongs to 1¾ miles. His lone Grade I victory came at 10-1 odds in the 2023 Frank E. Kilroe Mile at Santa Anita, his four tries in the Breeders’ Cup Turf have resulted in two fourth-place finishes and one fifth, and his three jaunts out of state have given him a third and a fourth – portrait of a superb though not world-beating horse.
His four consecutive victories in the Grade II Del Mar Handicap, and now his overall stakes-winning record at Del Mar, have created the image of a horse for that particular course.
Nothing wrong with that.
Of the dozens of great horses to run at Del Mar, the two with the most historic impact there were Seabiscuit and Best Pal.
Seabiscuit came along when Del Mar was a year old and needed a splash to put it on the national map. His Aug. 12, 1938, victory with jockey George Woolf in a hard-fought match race against Ligaroti, broadcast on radio coast to coast, was that splash.
Best Pal came along when Del Mar needed a memorable race to put the new $1 million Pacific Classic on the national map as it prepared to open its modern grandstand. The locally owned 3-year-old provided it Aug. 10, 1991, by upsetting a field of older stars under Patrick Valenzuela.
Gold Phoenix has come along in an era when many wonder if California racing is still on the national map, given how stagnant purses and stakes downgrades are causing elite horses to be moved to other states.
The outpouring of admiration around Del Mar after Gold Phoenix’s second win in the Grade II Eddie Read is a reminder that sometimes the national picture doesn’t matter. Sometimes it’s fun to have a horse who’s a regional delicacy doing remarkable things in your backyard. Sometimes, when you had to be there to appreciate a moment, it’s nice that it was within driving distance.
“Those horses (Seabiscuit, Best Pal and other greats) were horses for their times,” said Hank Wesch, the former San Diego Union-Tribune racing writer and author of the modern history “Del Mar: Where the Turf Meets the Surf.” “Gold Phoenix is a horse for this time.”
Gold Phoenix’s shot at a fifth Del Mar Handicap – and a seventh Del Mar stakes win — will come Aug. 29. There will be “bigger” races elsewhere in the country that day, but Californians needn’t care. On such an occasion, all racing is (as used to be said of politics) local.
THIS WEEKEND
Seismic Beauty will need a form reversal Saturday at Del Mar to get a repeat win in the Clement L. Hirsch Stakes and give jockey Juan Hernandez and trainer Bob Baffert their fourth straight victory in the Grade I race for fillies and mares. The 5-year-old mare faded to third at 2-5 odds behind Om N Joy and Simply Joking in the Grade II Santa Margarita at Santa Anita, her first start since being eased at 6-5 in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
Om N Joy (Kent Desormeaux riding) and Simply Joking (Emisael Jaramillo) are in the Hirsch field of nine. They’ll have to deal with Kentucky shipper Chasten (Florent Geroux) and New York invader Eunomia (Micah Husbands).
The winner could slip into a slot below 4-year-old Nitrogen, 5-year-old Splendora and 3-year-old Counting Stars in the national female mile-and-up division.
• Out of state Saturday, the Grade II Jim Dandy Stakes for 3-year-olds at Saratoga is led by Kentucky Derby runner-up Renegade (Irad Ortiz Jr.) and Belmont runner-up Commandment (Flavien Prat). The Grade I Arlington Million at Colonial Downs has Burnham Square (Brian Hernandez Jr.) seeking his fourth turf win in a row.
FURTHER REVIEW
The win by 4-year-old Listenupshance and jockey Emisael Jaramillo in the Grade I Bing Crosby Stakes at Del Mar on Sunday received a Beyer speed figure of 104, the highest for a race in California in 2026.
Among performances by male sprinters in 2026, it rates behind the Woody Stephens Stakes win by 3-year-old Englishman, the Churchill Downs Stakes win by 4-year-old TO Elvis and the 1-2 finish – ahead of Listenupshance – in the True North Stakes by 5-year-olds Book’em Danno and Bentornato.
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AT LOS ALAMITOS
A win at Los Alamitos on Saturday night would earn Scoops Dynasty (Jesus Rios Ayala) a chance to repeat his 2025 victory in the Grade I AQHA Racing Challenge Championship in Albuquerque in October.
Seven-year-old Scoops Dynasty, a four-time Grade I stakes champion, faces four other quarter horses in the Grade III AQHA Racing California Challenge Championship, the winner of which gets an automatic berth in the New Mexico race.
SAFETY WATCH
The death of the Grade III stakes-winning 4-year-old colt Cornucopian after he was injured in the Bing Crosby made headlines, but it was only the first of two deaths at Del Mar last weekend. The claiming-level 3-year-old filly Can You Dream fell with jockey Edgar Payeras after being pulled up in the eighth race Sunday.
They were the 19th and 20th horses to die in 2026 at Santa Anita (11), Los Alamitos (seven) and Del Mar (two), from all causes in racing and training, according to California Horse Racing Board records. That’s the most between Jan. 1 and July 26 since 2023 at the Southern California tracks, and two more than the average for the same stretch in 2021-2025. But it reflects a sharp improvement since 2020, when 36 horses died in this period at the three tracks in the first year the CHRB posted fatality data.
Payeras was taken to the hospital. He told the Daily Racing Form he was cleared to ride when Del Mar resumed racing Thursday.
SHORTENING UP
• With FanDuel TV phasing out racing coverage, Fox Sports will begin showing Del Mar full-time in 2027, it was announced this week. The deal actually will begin with Fox Sports coverage of the Aug. 22 Pacific Classic. Fox already televises New York races.
• Dylan Donnelly of Rancho Cucamonga, the National Horseplayers Championship winner in Las Vegas in March, continued his run of success in handicapping contests by taking first place in the Del Mar Summer Challenge last weekend. He collected $141,948 and entries in the Aug. 22 Pacific Classic Betting Challenge at Del Mar and Oct. 30-31 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge at Keeneland.
• Favorites won at a low 20% rate in the first two weeks of racing at Del Mar, thanks in part to larger-than-normal fields. Public choices won 42.7% at the Santa Anita Hollywood Meet.
• Journalism, retired after being injured in his San Diego Handicap win July 18, left Del Mar Tuesday for Coolmore America’s Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky. The Santa Anita Derby and Preakness winner begins stud duty in 2027.
• Jockey Antonio Fresu was suspended for three days (Aug. 9, 13, 14) after the controversial disqualification of first-place finisher Lady in Paris in the 11th race at Del Mar on Sunday. Stewards cited Fresu for “failure to make the proper effort to maintain a straight course in the stretch and causing interference.”
• Kentucky Downs has become the first track to raise the win, place and show bet minimum to $5 from the $2 that has been standard in America for more than 100 years. Starting with its Aug. 29-Sept. 10 meet, the Franklin, Ky., track also will have $3 and $5 minimums on some multi-horse bets. At the same time, it will lower takeout on pick-threes, pick-fours and pick-fives to 15% from 20%. The higher minimum on straight bets reportedly is partly a move to blunt the impact of computer-assisted wagering.
• A judge has approved the sale of Hawthorne Race Course to a company that plans to develop the property. It’s the end of the sport in the Chicago area. I went to Hawthorne once, during a trip to write about college basketball more than 40 years ago. The facility was industrial, the day was cold and rainy, and I got in the mood by mismarking a betting card to blow an $800 trifecta. It all felt kind of perfect.
Follow horse racing correspondent Kevin Modesti at X.com/KevinModesti.
DEL MAR LEADERS
(Through Sunday)
Jockeys / Wins
Umberto Rispoli / 8
Juan Hernandez / 8
Kazushi Kimura / 7
Emisael Jaramillo / 7
Antonio Fresu / 6
Hector Berrios / 5
Armando Ayuso / 4
Tyler Baze / 3
Kyle Frey / 3
Joel Rosario / 3
Trainers / Wins
Doug O’Neill / 9
Phil D’Amato / 5
Mark Glatt / 4
Michael McCarthy / 4
Antonio Garcia / 3
Bob Baffert / 3
Richard Mandella / 3
Craig Lewis / 3
George Papaprodromou / 3
UPCOMING STAKES
DEL MAR
Friday
• $150,000 Real Good Deal Stakes, California-bred 3-year-olds, 7 furlongs
Saturday
• $400,000, Grade I Clement L. Hirsch Stakes, fillies and mares, 3-year-olds and up, 1 1/16 miles
• $150,000 California Dreamin’ Stakes, Cal-breds, 3 and up, 1 1/16 miles on turf
Sunday
• $100,000 CTBA Stakes, Cal-bred 2-year-old fillies, 5½ furlongs
LOS ALAMITOS
Saturday
• $40,000, Grade III AQHA California Championship Challenge, quarter horses, 3 and up, 440 yards
Sunday
• $30,000 California Distaff Challenge, quarter-horse fillies and mares, 3 and up, 400 yard
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