Fairplex Park: New arrival going a distance

Benoit & Associates

Honour the Deputy (left) falls short to Worth Repeating in the 2011 Tokyo City Cup. He will be dropping in class after a futile summer chasing graded stakes winners.

POMONA, Calif. – Trainer Pete Eurton and the gelding Liberty Cap are racking up travel miles this week, flying from all over the world for a marathon Thursday at Fairplex Park.

Eurton was vacationing in Italy early this week. Liberty Cap was stabled in Florida. They meet Thursday in the paddock at Fairplex, where Liberty Cap makes his first California start in race 7, a 1 3/8-mile starter allowance that precedes the race-8 feature.

Class-dropper Honour the Deputy is favored in race 8, a first-level allowance/optional $40,000 claiming race. He faces Fairplex horse-for-course Oilisblackgold in a 1 1/16-mile race that might seem like a sprint compared to the starter allowance a race earlier.

Nine horses entered race 7, a marathon run over two complete laps of the five-eighth-mile track. Liberty Cap, in the money in three successive stakes at Calder this summer, is a good fit on class. The race is restricted to horses who started for $20,000 claiming or less in 2012.

Liberty Cap ran for a $20,000 claiming price in January, was claimed for $25,000 in March, won three races in Florida, and recently was sold to California interests. His new owners are Dennis Conner, Lloyd DeBruycker, and Wade Jacobsen.

“I had nothing to do with the sale,” Eurton said this week from Venice. “My clients bought him from the same agent that sold them My Gi Gi.” Good precedent. My Gi Gi later won the Grade 2 Honeymoon and finished second in the Grade 1 American Oaks.

Liberty Cap was due to arrive at Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday at 6 p.m. Plans called for the gelding to spend the night at Betfair Hollywood Park, van to Fairplex on Wednesday morning, have a light jog and schooling session, and race on Thursday.

Eurton, meanwhile, also was returning to Los Angeles, and promised, “I will be there to saddle him.” Kevin Krigger will ride Liberty Cap, whose recent class and speed figures make him a worthy favorite, though he has not raced beyond 1 1/8 miles.

Marathons are nothing new for Falling Knife, romping winner of the 1 5/8-mile Humboldt County Marathon on Aug. 26 at Ferndale.

Falling Knife, trained by Bill Morey, will be ridden by Aaron Gryder.

Other starters include Big Son of a Gun, the only three-time winner at Del Mar this summer, along with Dan Hendricks trainees Lamm and Joe Carl.

In the race-8 allowance feature, Honour the Deputy drops in class after a futile summer chasing graded stakes winners Coil, Gladding and Richard’s Kid. Juan Hernandez rides for trainer Jerry Hollendorfer.

Oilisblackgold has spent most of his career finishing on the bottom of exactas (six seconds) and trifectas (five thirds). But he loves the bullring. Oilisblackgold raced at Fairplex once, in his second career start in 2010. He won a maiden special weight by more than four lengths. Edwin Maldonado rides for trainer Craig Dollase.

Other contenders include Achak, Dunmore East and Hunstville.