DEL MAR — The 5-year-old mare Medoro was nearing the end of a career filled with near-misses in big races. Her trainer Pete Eurton was sending out his last runner of a frustrating meet.
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Fortunately for them, closing day of the 87th Del Mar summer season was made for satisfying finishes, both on the racetrack and in the offices where the betting handle was added up.
It was made for Medoro and Eurton, who benefited from the latest sharp big-money ride by Juan Hernandez to score a mild upset of Thought Process in the Grade II John C. Mabee Stakes for fillies and mares on the Del Mar turf course on Monday.
Eurton, who went into the Mabee 4 for 37 at the meet, had seen Medoro thrive in lower-level stakes but go 0 for 6 before this in Grade I’s and II’s. The losses for the daughter of Honor Code included a second to Gimme a Nother in the 2025 John C. Mabee, a second to Iscreamuscream in the Del Mar Oaks, and third-place finishes to She Feels Pretty in the American Oaks and to dead-heat winners Expensive Queen and Segesta in Keeneland’s Jenny Wiley.
“It feels good,” Eurton said after Medoro and Hernandez locked into a battle with 3-5 favorite Thought Process and Hector Berrios on the turn for home and outdueled the Grade I winner down the stretch to earn a one-length victory.
Medoro got her seventh victory in 18 starts in a career that Eurton said could soon shift to the breeding shed. Owners Lee and Susan Searing of Claremont got $150,000 of the $250,000 purse. Winning bettors picked up $8.60 for each $2.
It took a 1:47.61 clocking for 1⅛ miles, the fastest Mabee in eight years, to beat Thought Process.
Trainer Phil D’Amato said he wished Berrios had tried to take command earlier.
Eurton, meanwhile, credited good positioning by Hernandez, whose own fast finish to the Del Mar summer gave him a meet-high 14 stakes wins.
Said Hernandez: “When it was time to go, she really went.”
Hernandez rode three winners on Labor Day, but Joel Rosario clinched the Del Mar riding title in absentia to end Hernandez’s streak of Del Mar summer titles at four. Rosario finished with 42 wins (19%), Hernandez with 38 (23.5%).
Rosario, a 41-year-old Racing Hall of Famer who returned to California earlier this year, won his fourth Del Mar championship but his first since 2011. He rode at Kentucky Downs on Monday.
Doug O’Neill clinched his sixth Del Mar summer training title on Saturday and finished with 27 wins, 10 more than runner-up Bob Baffert.
The windy, cloudy day was the 32nd and last day of the Del Mar meet and a day for summing up.
On the track, highlights included Knightsbridge and jockey Junior Alvarado winning the $1 million Pacific Classic, a 6¼-length romp that lifted the 5-year-old to No. 2 behind Sovereignty in the National Thoroughbred Racing Association rankings.
The popular Journalism rallied from a distant last to win the San Diego Handicap, but an injury sustained in his awkward start forced his retirement before the Pacific Classic. Local hero Gold Phoenix won the Eddie Read Stakes to become the first six-time stakes winner in Del Mar history, only to later be denied a fifth consecutive Del Mar Handicap. Test Score won the Del Mar Handicap to make East Coast trainer Graham Motion 3 for 3 in stakes here this summer.
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Sweet Azteca won the Rancho Bernardo Stakes for fillies and mares for the third time. Proletariat dominated 3-year-old competition in the Oceanside and then repeated that in the Del Mar Derby. The sprinter Listenupshance gave O’Neill his biggest victory of the meet in the Bing Crosby Stakes.
Baffert won the Del Mar Futurity for the 20th time with Hughes and won the Del Mar Debutante for the 13th time with Miss Monica, extending his own record with his 196th stakes win at the track.
Second in career stakes wins at Del Mar is John Sadler, whose victory with Early Encore ($3.80) and jockey Emisael Jaramillo in Monday’s I’m Smokin Stakes for Cal-bred 2-year-olds was his 95th.
Most of those achievements were noticed more on the West Coast than nationwide. In the latest NTRA rankings determined by media balloting, Knightsbridge was the only horse who ran at this Del Mar meet who placed in the top 20 – and Knightsbridge is not a California-based runner but a product of Bill Mott’s New York-based barn. By comparison, six of the top 10 ran at Saratoga’s summer meet, including top-ranked older male Sovereignty, older female Nitrogen, turf horse Deterministic and one-turn horse Englishman.
Off the track, Del Mar reported increases for the second summer season in a row in total, all-sources wagering (up 2.3% to $546.8 million) and wagering specifically on Del Mar races (up 3.1% to $366.8 million), though it took one more racing day than a year ago.
Del Mar Thoroughbred Club president Josh Rubinstein attributed the rise to maintaining strong field size (8.6 horses per race) despite a slight drop in the track’s horse population.
“I’m really pleased with the results,” Rubinstein said Monday. “Bettors like full fields, they like value, and our racing office really delivered that.”
Bill Nader, the Thoroughbred Owners of California president and CEO, attributed the economic upticks of the past two years to the consolidation of the state’s racing to Del Mar, Santa Anita and Los Alamitos. (Northern Californians would say it doesn’t make up for the loss of tracks up there.)
“I think we should be a little more optimistic about our future,” Nader said.
One increase wasn’t to be celebrated: Three horses died from injuries in races at Del Mar, the most at the track’s summer meet since the California Horse Racing Board began posting fatality data in 2020. (There were no deaths in training, so Del Mar’s total fatalities were slightly fewer than the average for the previous six years.)
Thoroughbred racing moves to Los Alamitos (Friday to Sept. 20) and Santa Anita (Sept. 25-Nov. 1) before returning to Del Mar for the meet’s 13th fall meet (Nov. 6-29). For the first time since 2023, the fall meet won’t include the Breeders’ Cup, which will be held at Keeneland Oct. 30-31.
NOTABLE
• Hughes’ 84 Beyer speed figure for covering 7 furlongs in 1:22.57 in winning the Del Mar Futurity on Sunday was one of the lowest in recent years for California’s first Grade I race of the season for 2-year-olds. But it was one point higher than The Good Life received for going 7 furlongs in 1:24.08 in Sunday’s Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga.
• The longshot of the season came on the last day. The 3-year-old filly Marvelousmissmabel and jockey Cristobal Herrera unexpectedly went to the lead and kept going to win the maiden-claiming second race and pay $170.60 for $2. Marvelousmissmabel entered with two off-the-board finishes; Herrera had been 0 for 30 at the meet, trainer Luis Mendez 1 for 22.
• The hottest trainer as the meet ended was Andy Mathis. Zero for 27 to start the meet, Mathis had wins with five of his last nine starters after Dottie Hinson ($15) and Mo Bradley ($7.60) won the fourth and fifth races Monday. Mathis also had a victory with his lone starter at Los Alamitos in that stretch.
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