The sparkling Pacific Classic trophy. (Benoit Photo)
Pacific Classic Record Breakers
Jim Charvat
Another Pacific Classic is set to go and with every running there’s the possibility of a record-setting performance. As the Classic gets older, these records become more prestigious.
Last year the longshot Mixto captured the Pacific Classic and paid $46.40 on a $2 win ticket. But that’s not the most a Classic winner has paid. You have to go back to 1996 to find the longest priced winner. That was when Dare And Go shocked the racing world and defeated the “unconquerable, the invincible, the unbeatable” Cigar.
“I was a fan of Cigar, too,” Dare and Go’s trainer Richard Mandella remembers. “So I was surprised also to see him beat Cigar. I got hate mail. One warned me not be out at night but he didn’t sign his name so I figured it was alright.”
Dare and Go went off at 39-1 and paid $81.20. Cigar still holds the record for the shortest priced runner in the Pacific Classic at 1-10. The longest priced runner in the Classic was Aryton S in 1998 who went off at 185-1 and he ran like it. He would finish eighth to Free House.
The shortest priced horse to ever win the Pacific Classic was Flightline in 2022. He went off at 3-10 and ran like it, annihilating the field and paying $2.60 to his backers.
Trainer John Sadler would say later that not even Secretariat could have beaten Flightline on that day.
“Absolutely,” Sadler said with a smile. “I don’t think there was a horse who would have beat him in that race.”
Flightline also set the mark for the largest win margin, crossing the wire 19 ¼ lengths better than his closest competitor, Country Grammar.
“He thinks he won the race,” Country Grammar’s trainer Bob Baffert would joke afterwards..
Flightline not only blew away the field on that Pacific Classic Day he also blew away the old record for victory margin, which was 12 ½ lengths set by another Sadler trainee Accelerate in 2018.
The smallest margin of victory in the Pacific Classic came in 2011 when Acclamation, a Cal-bred son of Unusual Heat, beat Twirling Candy by a head. Acclamation was trained by Donald Warren and ridden by Patrick Valenzuela. He is one of seven Cal-breds to win the Classic.
Acclamation was 5-years-old when he captured Del Mar’s marquee race but that’s not the oldest horse to ever win the Pacific Classic. That goes to two horses: One was Pleasantly Perfect, a beautiful bay horse who won the race in 2004 at age six.
“For some reason he never got appreciated for as good as he was,” Mandella notes. “He had pericarditis, a heart inflammation, as a 2-and-3-year old. That’s why he didn’t run. That’s what people drop dead from in the gym. They don’t know they’re sick and we had no idea (with Pleasantly Perfect). He looked like a million dollars but he’d get tired real easy. To overcome that, and do what he did, it boggles my mind.”
Game on Dude was also a 6-year-old when he ran away with the 2013 edition.
“He was a speed horse and he had to have the lead,” Baffert recalls. “(Trainer Jerry) Hollendorfer had a speed horse outside of us and Mark Casse told his rider to keep us out as far as possible down the stretch (the first time). But when they broke, Game On Dude missed the break.
“So the other speed horse (Blueskiesnrainbows) went on,” Baffert continues, “and the jockey (on Casse’s horse) saw the speed horse and I think he got confused and thought that it was Game On Dude because he kept poor Jerry Hollendorfer’s horse stuck way out there and Game on Dude just zipped around there.”
He won the race by a then record 8 ½ lengths.
Game on Dude was by Awesome Again out of a Devil His Due mare. Baseball great Joe Torre was part owner and led the gelding into the winner’s circle. The ‘Dude’ is now living out his days at Old Friends in Kentucky He’s one of four geldings to win the race. The others were Best Pal, the winner of the inaugural running in 1991, Lava Man in 2006 and Shared Belief in 2014
Best Pal and Shared Belief were 3-year-olds when they won, the youngest a horse can be and win the Pacific Classic. There have been six sophomore winners over the years. The other four were General Challenge in 1999; Came Home in 2002; Dullahan in 2012, and Arabian Knight in 2023.
Arguably the most unforgettable Pacific Classic was the one run in 2015 when the mare Beholder captivated the Del Mar crowd by beating the boys. She is the only female to win the Classic.
“I had Catch A Flight who had just won the San Diego,” Mandella remembers. “There wasn’t a horse in the barn that I could work with Beholder that she wouldn’t beat easily. So after she won the Clement Hirsch I realized ‘she can beat everybody’. She just gave me that confidence.”
He remembers the race like it was yesterday.
“It was so awesome,” Mandella adds. “Gary Stevens never moved. She did it all like it was mapped out. She hit the three-eighths pole and he’s (Stevens) sitting their laying fourth. He said ‘I didn’t even think about moving and she just started rolling’ and at the finish he’s petting her and pulling her over.”
Beholder would return in 2016 to defend her crown but that was the year California Chrome was putting together his second Horse of the Year campaign and Beholder had to settle for second in the Pacific Classic that year.
Four other females have taken a shot at beating the boys in the Classic. Paseana in 1992, Island Fashion in 2005, Amani in 2012 and Byrama in 2013. None of them finished better than fifth.
Three horses have pulled off back-to-back wins in the Pacific Classic. Tinners Way in 1994 and ’95. He would finish second in an attempt to win it three years in row. No horse has ever done that.
There was Skimming in the 2000 and 2001 editions. Both Tinners Way and Skimming were trained by Bobby Frankel and owned by Juddmonte Farms.
Richard’s Kid came along and won it in 2009 and 2010.
“I remember I needed a rider for him,” Baffert states. “I was at the draw and I saw that Mike Smith was open. I told Mike later ‘If you win this race I will get on my knees and I will bow to you in the winner’s circle.’”
Richard’s Kid was one of three horses with the most starts in the Pacific Classic. He had four starts along with Awesome Gem and Game on Dude.
The largest field for a Pacific Classic was in 2002 when 14 horses went to the post. That was the year the 3-year-old Came Home rallied to win the Classic for trainer Paco Gonzalez and jockey Mike Smith, who picked up the first of his record-tying four Pacific Classic victories.
The smallest field came one year later in 2003 when only four horses showed up. It was quality over quantity that year. Sid and Jenny Craig’s Candy Ride won the race defeating odds-on favorite Medaglia D’Oro and two-time Santa Anita Handicap winner Milwaukee Brew. Candy Ride was trained by the great Ron McAnally and ridden by Hall of Famer Julie Krone.
Candy Ride still holds the record for the fastest running of the Pacific Classic on dirt. The Argentine-bred covered the mile and a quarter in 1:59.11. The fastest on the Polytrack, which was in play between 2007 and 2014, was by Dullahan in 2012. He stopped the clock at 1:59.54.
The slowest running, on the dirt, came in 2019 when Higher Power came home in 2:02.43. Student Council clocked the slowest Pacific Classic on the Polytrack in 2007 when he lumbered home in 2:07.29.
Mike Smith and the late Garrett Gomez have won the most Pacific Classics by jockeys with four. Smith won his first Classic on Came Home and went back-to-back in 2009 and 2010 on Richard’s Kid. He notched his most recent Pacific Classic win on Shared Belief in 2014.
“He holds a special place in my heart,” Smith says of Shared Belief, who died unexpectedly in 2016 from complications due to colic. “Then to win races like that on him, that’s incredible.
“If you’re going to win one, that’s the one you want to win,” Smith says about the Classic, “and not because of the purse but because of the prestige. It’s just an honor to win something like it. Even to just get the opportunity to ride in it, it means a lot. Everybody’s watching that race. If you’re in it, people are seeing you’re doing well enough to ride in the Pacific Classic so it’s a big thing.”
Gomez won his first two Pacific Classics on Skimming in 2000 and 2001. He also rode Borrego to victory in 2005 and Go Between in 2008.
Bob Baffert is the leading trainer in Pacific Classic wins with seven.
“My first one was with General Challenge (1999),” Baffert says. “That was the coolest one. Winning it for John Mabee who was the founder of the Pacific Classic.”
Baffert has tallied one more win than Bobby Frankel, who won four of the first five runnings and six of the first nine. He won four straight between 1992 and 1995. That is a record that may never be equaled. No trainer has ever won three-in-a-row outside of Frankel. John Sadler won four out five between 2018 and 2022. He finished fourth with Higher Power in 2020.
But records are made to be broken and, who knows, with the group assembled for this year’s race it wouldn’t surprise anyone if we see something we’ve never seen before in the storied history of the Pacific Classic.
