Adare Manor and Juan Hernandez after the Hirsch (Ernie Belmonte/Past The Wire)
Del Mar Stable Notes by Jim Charvat
DEL MAR, Calif.— The morning after was business as usual at the Bob Baffert barn Sunday, less than 24 hours after his impressive filly Adare Manor won the G1 Clement Hirsch. The ‘Win and You’re In’ victory punches her ticket to the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Santa Anita November 4 and allows Baffert a chance to take a deep breath.
“When you have the heavy favorite like that there’s extra pressure and stuff like that,” Baffert says. “It’s a relief that she won this race.”
Baffert’s assistant trainer Jimmy Barnes says both of their runners came back in good order following the race. Fun to Dream ran last in her first race since March.
“I was disappointed,” Baffert says about Fun to Dream. “I thought she’d run better than that. But we gave it a try.”
Meanwhile, at the Phil D’Amato barn, Desert Dawn and Elm Drive were resting up after their second and third-place finishes in the Hirsch. Assistant trainer Rudy Cruz says both are in good shape this morning, though Elm Drive has some swelling on a hind leg after she got stepped on at the start by Fun to Dream.
It didn’t appear to bother her much in the race as she set a strong pace and fended off Adare Manor for much of the stretch drive giving way inside the sixteenth pole. Her stablemate, Desert Dawn, passed her in the final strides.
Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the backside, trainer Dean Pederson says Carmelita’s Man was in good order, though a little tired Sunday morning, following his win in the $150,000 California Dreamin’, a race restricted to Cal-breds.
“I’d much rather have that,” Pederson says, “than have a horse that is bucking after a race he loses.”
Pederson has no definitive plan yet for his son of Mucho Macho Man.
“Maybe we’ll come back here,” Pederson says. “Of course, the horse comes first. I learned a long time ago if you put yourself before the horse, bad things happen.”
You can’t blame Pederson for wanting to run Carmelita’s Man back at Del Mar. The horse has won four races with two seconds in eight starts on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course. Last year, when Carmelita’s Man won the California Dreamin’, Pederson came back with him on closing weekend and won an entry-level allowance race in open company.
“That’s what’s nice about Cal-bred wins; they don’t count against you in open company,” Pederson points out. “I had a horse a couple of years ago, Fashionably Fast, who won $800,000 and people were wondering how we could run him in a non-winner of two.”
