After an up-and-down year for the record books, Omaha Beach heavily favored in BC Dirt Mile

ARCADIA, Calif. – Stick around long enough as a trainer – and Richard Mandella has been around long enough to get a plaque in the Hall of Fame – and you’ll deal with plenty of setbacks.

“It’s part of a trainer’s life. We deal with it here every day,” he said at his Santa Anita barn.

But nothing before has compared to what Mandella navigated this year with Omaha Beach, whose defection from the Kentucky Derby just days before he would have started as the favorite probably moved to the top of a list Mandella would rather not compile.

It’s a testament to the skill of the trainer, and the immense talent of the colt, that Omaha Beach will race on Saturday in the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Santa Anita, in which he will be heavily favored. But there is also an element of what might have been, for had Omaha Beach not encountered more potholes than a drive down Hollywood Blvd. after a rainstorm he might be coming into Saturday as a Derby winner trying to add the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Over these many months, Omaha Beach has kept coming back for more, and his personality has endeared him to Mandella in a way that the great mare Beholder did before him. That’s among the many reasons Mandella wants Omaha Beach to get his due on Saturday.

“I’m proud of him enough, and then he’s got that personality,” Mandella said. “When you get his feed tub ready, he acts like he’s talking. He wiggles his lips.

“He’s kind of turned into a pet. In the short time that anyone’s around him, he’ll become a favorite of theirs. He’s got a face you can’t resist, and a personality.”

He also can run, both short and long, and he has shown he can hit just about every curveball thrown his way. He’s seen more this year than a batter facing Gerrit Cole.

Omaha Beach always was highly regarded by Mandella, but took until his fifth race, on Feb. 2, to finally beat maidens. It was his first sprint after four straight races going two turns. He won in a romp, but it came with a price, for Omaha Beach came out that race, run over a sloppy, sealed surface, with a quarter crack.

In order to let the crack heal as much as possible before racing again, but cognizant that the window was closing to get Omaha Beach into races that could move him along to the Derby, Mandella sent Omaha Beach to Oaklawn Park for the Rebel on March 16.

“We patched it,” Mandella said of the quarter crack, “and went to Arkansas.”

Along the way, Omaha Beach lost his jockey, as Flavien Prat opted to ride Galilean before knowing the Rebel would be split owing to a suspension of racing at Santa Anita that caused several California-based runners to head to Oaklawn. And because Santa Anita was closed for training, Omaha Beach had to go to Los Alamitos in order to get in a key workout.

Despite all that, Omaha Beach, with Mike Smith up, won his division of the Rebel, nosing out last year’s champion 2-year-old male, Game Winner.

“He’s such a pro. Just the best horse,” Mandella said.

Four weeks later, Omaha Beach returned to Oaklawn and won the Arkansas Derby, which made him the favorite for the Kentucky Derby.

But three days before the Derby, Mandella was forced to withdraw Omaha Beach owing to an entrapped epiglottis that required minor surgery.

“Then after we got him home, he got a virus that was going through my barn like wildfire,” Mandella said.

Mandella originally envisioned a fall campaign that would begin with the Shared Belief at Del Mar in August, then the Awesome Again in September, and, if those two went well, the Classic.

“We could have been on track for anything,” Mandella said.

But a minor setback forced Omaha Beach to miss the Shared Belief. Mandella was apprehensive about bringing Omaha Beach back from a six-month layoff in the Awesome Again, or shipping him to Churchill Downs for the Ack Ack, so he settled on the Santa Anita Sprint Championship, at six furlongs the shortest distance he’d ever run, and his first start against older runners.

“After I looked at it, I thought that when I dropped him back to a sprint earlier in the year he sprinted pretty well,” Mandella said. “And he did it again.”

Mandella felt trying to run 1 1/4 miles for the first time in the Classic four weeks later, off that one race, following a lengthy layoff, was too much to ask of Omaha Beach. He’ll go in the Dirt Mile instead, seeking to add a Grade 1 win at that distance to previous ones at six furlongs and 1 1/8 miles.

But the fact is it would not have been unreasonable to see Omaha Beach in any of three races, the Dirt Mile, Classic, or Sprint. That’s how good he is. He’s gotten knocked down, and gotten right back up.

“He’s that good, to overcome all that,” Mandella said.