2020 Hollywood Derby at Del Mar

Headed by the $300,000, Grade I Hollywood Derby, Del Mar Thoroughbred Club will present one of the best racing cards seen at the shore oval in decades Saturday on the penultimate day of sport for the seventh Bing Crosby Season.

Nine races - averaging more than 10 horses apiece - including three graded turf stakes will make for a delightful afternoon of competition and wagering at the seaside oval with the fun kicking off at 12:30 p.m.

The Hollywood Derby, run at nine furlongs on the turf, has drawn 13 3-year-olds - eight colts, four geldings and one filly. All the males will carry 122 pounds, while the filly gets a three-pound sex allowance. It will be run as the ninth and final race on the program.

A trio of eastern-based trainers should have a big say in the headliner - Christophe Clement, Chad Brown and Thomas Bush. Clement has sent out a pair for the Grade I in Otter Bend Stables' Gufo and West Point Thoroughbreds, Freeman, Sandbrook or Manning's Decorated Invader. Brown has entered Klaravich Stables' Domestic Spending and Bush will be represented by the Mary Abeel Sullivan Revocable Trust's Get Smokin.

Here's the full field for the seventh local running of the race from the rail out with riders and morning line odds:

Wertheimer & Frere's Kanderel (Giovanni Franco, 30-1); Cannon Thoroughbreds' Smooth Like Strait (Umberto Rispoli, 7/2); Little Red Feather Racing or Naify's Scarto (Manny Franco, 10-1); Nguyen or Tran's Taishan (Jose Valdivia, Jr., 12-1); Exline-Border Racing, Bernsen, Hudock or Wilson's Storm the Court (Juan Hernandez, 8-1); Wachtel Stable or Gary Barber's California Kook (Ricky Gonzalez, 20-1); Roadrunner Racing or Sayjay Racing's Strongconstitution (Abel Cedillo, 20-1); Domestic Spending (Irad Ortiz, Jr., 5-1); Get Smokin (Mike Smith, 12-1); Decorated Invader (Joel Rosario, 3-1); R A Hill Stable or Reeves Thoroughbred Racing's Ever Dangerous (Victor Espinoza, 12-1); MyRacehorse.com or Spendthrift Farm's Lane Way (Drayden Van Dyke, 20-1), and Gufo (Flavien Prat, 4-1).

This actually will be the 79th edition of the Hollywood Derby with the first 72 presentations having taken place at the now-demolished Hollywood Park facility in Inglewood near LAX airport. When the race shifted to Del Mar in 2014, it got a big boost in its first local edition when soon-to-be Horse of the Year California Chrome won it smartly and thus ensured himself the first of his two HOY titles.

The chestnut colt Gufo, a son of the War Front stallion Declaration of War, shows four wins and a photo-finish second on his ledger for 2020. The stretch runner won the Grade I Belmont Derby last out on October 3 at the big New York track. Stablemate Decorated Invader has won five of nine starts and more than $500,000.

The Kingman gelding Domestic Spending has won three of four lifetime outings, including a tally in the Saratoga Derby Invitational in his most recent effort on August 15 at the upstate New York track.

Get Smokin, by Get Stormy, comes into the race off a score in the Grade II Hill Prince on the lawn at Belmont Park on October 18.

The local contingent is headed by multiple-stakes winner and $397,823 earner Smooth Like Strait and 2019 Juvenile champion Storm the Court, who has more than $1.3 million in the bank. That pair finished one-two in the Grade III La Jolla Handicap at Del Mar this summer, with the winner Smooth Like Strait coming back to capture the Grade II Twilight Derby at Santa Anita on October 18.

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