Horse racing: Del Mar’s Turf Festival showcases rising stars

DEL MAR — Del Mar’s annual Turf Festival of seven stakes Friday, Saturday and Sunday marks the end of the San Diego track’s autumn season and a big finish for major grass-course racing in America in 2024.

One race in particular may also offer a preview of 2025.

It’s the Hollywood Derby, the $300,000, Grade I race that has drawn a field of 13, led by top local turf 3-year-old Formidable Man and sharp New York shippers Carson’s Run and Donegal Momentum.

This is the 84th edition of the Hollywood Derby, which started at Hollywood Park as a main-track race each April, switched to turf each November when Hollywood’s fall meet debuted in 1981, and moved to Del Mar after Hollywood closed in 2013. Along the way it was called the Westerner Stakes for a time in the 1940s and ’50s, tried five different distance-and-surface combinations, and made appearances in September and July. Its glittering name is matched by a list of winners that includes the fillies Busher, Honeymoon, A Gleam and Royal Heroine, Triple Crown winner Affirmed, Kentucky Derby winners Swaps, Riva Ridge and California Chrome, and more North American champions in Round Table, Itsallgreektome and Paradise Creek.

But in recent years, in Hollywood terms, it has been as much Schwab’s drug store, a place for potential stars to get discovered, as an Oscar ceremony, a venue for career-making achievements.

In the 10 Hollywood Derbys held at Del Mar, five winners achieved their first victories at the elite Grade I level and three others scored their first wins at any stakes level. Of the 10, five went on to Grade I wins against older horses, including the 2023 winner Program Trading, and two went on to multiple Grade II wins in the older divisions.

It takes a good horse to win the Hollywood Derby because the chance to run a 3-year-old against his or her age group one last time for Grade I honors attracts some of the East Coast’s leading barns. Trainer Chad Brown has won four of the past eight, among them Program Trading, and Saturday’s race has drawn trainers Christophe Clement (Carson’s Run) and Thomas Morley (Donegal Momentum).

In Saturday’s 1 1/8-mile race, the out-of-towners will be trying to beat Formidable Man and jockey Umberto Rispoli on the turf where they won the 1-mile Oceanside Stakes on July 20 and the Grade II, 1 1/8-mile Del Mar Derby on Sept. 1.

“He’s a horse we’ve had high hopes for quite some time,” trainer Michael McCarthy said of the William and Suzanne Warren-owned Formidable Man, a son of the same trainer’s and owners’ 2018 Breeders’ Cup Mile winner City of Light and the Grade II-winning mare Fanticola. “He’s really starting to put some things together now. He’s grown up, matured and really started to level off and finish up his races nicely. Going a mile and an eighth will suit him.”

To have Formidable Man rested, McCarthy decided to pass last month’s Grade II Twilight Derby at Santa Anita, in which the 1-2-3 finishers were Hollywood Derby entrants Atitlan, Stay Hot and Cathal.

“I believe it’s done him some good,” McCarthy said.

The horse to beat is Carson’s Run (Dylan Davis riding), who comes to his first Del Mar start with Grade I credentials from his Saratoga Derby Invitational win in August.

However, McCarthy, whose career highlights include Rombauer’s win in the 2021 Preakness, judges Formidable Man to be “a legitimate Grade I-type horse” too.

McCarthy has his eye on the Grade II Mathis Mile on the Dec. 26 opening-day card at Santa Anita for Formidable Man’s next race.

And then?

“Next year, there’s all kinds of big purses around the country,” McCarthy said. “You’d have to think, if a horse like (Formidable Man) jumps up and does well (Saturday), you’ll go seeking out a big purse at Keeneland or possibly the Pegasus.”

He referred to turf races for older horses like the Grade I Maker’s Mark Mile, worth $600,000 in April at Keeneland, and the Grade I Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational, for $1 million in January at Gulfstream Park.

Come next year, this Hollywood Derby may be a race we look back on as the best of Saturday’s runners go on to even bigger things.

For now, it’s a race to look forward to.

Follow horse racing correspondent Kevin Modesti at Twitter.com/KevinModesti.