Nine runners looking to secure a spot in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (GI) over the same track in 2 ½ months, will race seven furlongs in Saturday’s 40th edition of the $250,000 Pat O’Brien Stakes (G2) at Del Mar, the tracks third of six Breeders’ Cup Challenge “Win & You’re In” events held over the Southern California oval’s summer season.
The Pat O’Brien is named for the popular 1930s and 1940s actor who along with Bing Crosby built the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club. Throughout his lengthy career O’Brien made more than 100 movies – many to this day are classics and in regular rotation on Turner Classic Movies – and spent most of his summers in what he called his favorite place where the turf meets the surf next to the Pacific Ocean.
Inaugurated in 1986, it took a few years for the Pat O’Brien Stakes to take off as a must-stop race for local sprinters, and though California-bred standout Sensational Star was victorious in 1990, it wasn’t until eventual Eclipse Award winner and Breeders’ Cup Sprint (GI) champion Lit de Justice took home top honors in 1995 that the status of the event was solidified. The 1996 Breeders’ Cup Classic (GI) winner Alphabet Soup won the Pat O’Brien in 1996 before his greatest career score at Woodbine that October, and in 2004 Kela gave the late well-respected horseman Mike Mitchell his first grade 1 winner in the Pat O’Brien.
Other top names to have won the Pat O’Brien include Imperialism, The Factor, Fed Biz, Goldencents, Masochistic, Dubai World Cup (G1) winner Laurel River, and the recently retired Met Mile (G1) and Godolphin Mile (G1) winner Raging Torrent.
Bob Baffert has sent out eight winners of this race over his Hall of Fame career, including five in a row from 2009 to 2013, and fellow Hall of Famer Victor Espinoza has ridden six winners, but has moved his tack to Saratoga so will not gain a seventh win this year.
The Baffert-trained Speed Boat Beach, who holds Del Mar’s five-furlong track record of 1:01.86 for the distance, was sidelined for all of 2024 and has one start since – a tenth-place finish in a listed stakes at Churchill Downs in May -- but has been working solidly and steadily since, including a bullet five-eighths in :58.40 heading into this race. The now 5-year-old, whoa won the 2023 Malibu Stakes (G1) at Santa Anita and the Cecil B. DeMille Stakes (G3) over this track in 2022, will have leading rider Juan Hernandez aboard.
Millionaire Stronghold won last year’s Santa Anita Derby (G1) before a second under the Twin Spires in the Kentucky Derby (G1) and has not raced since a dismal performance in January’s Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1). For his comeback, the Phil D'Amato-trained son of Ghostzapper will have regular rider Antonio Fresu aboard off a series of steady works over the track since mid-July.
Grade 2 winner Dr. Venkman is coming off a flat fourth in the San Diego Handicap (G2) (which he won in 2024) and drew the rail for this contest. The Mark Glatt trainee has a pair of seconds sprinting in stakes this year and returns to one turn under jockey Umberto Rispoli.
Maymun, a $900,000 juvenile purchase and undefeated in two starts, is making his first start in 18 months and his stakes debut. Baffert trains the Frosted colt for Amr Zedan and the colt will race off seven consecutive gate works, including his most recent bullet in :58.40 on Sunday. Kazushi Kimura rides.
For those who bet on horse racing, the picks: 1. Speed Boat Beach 2 Stronghold 3 Dr. Venkman
The field for the $250,000 Pat O’Brien Stakes (G2), from the rail out, with jockey, trainer, odds:
1 Dr. Venkman (Umberto Rispoli, Mark Glatt), 4-1
2 Speed Boat Beach (Juan Hernandez, Bob Baffert), 5/2;
3 Spirit of Makena (Mirco Demuro, George Papaprodromou), 20-1)
4 Maymun (Kazushi Kimura, Bob Baffert), 5-1
5 Awesome Rhythm (Armando Ayuso, Victor Garcia), 20-1
6 Stronghold (Umberto Rispoli, Phil D'Amto), 3-1;
7 Express Train (Hector I. Berrios, John Shirreffs), 12-1
8 Tapalo (Abel Lezcano, John Sadler), 12-1
9 Man O Rose (Edwin Maldonado, Jeff Mullins), 8-1
The Pat O'Brien will be Race 9 on a 10-race card. First post Saturday is 2 p.m. and the feature is scheduled to go off at 6:03 p.m. PT.
The writing team at US Racing is comprised of both full-time and part-time contributors with expertise in various aspects of the Sport of Kings.
