Argentine Horse of Year will get little notice in Seabiscuit Handicap

Hi Happy is the only Horse of the Year and undefeated runner in Saturday’s $200,000 Seabiscuit Handicap at Del Mar.

Despite those credentials, Hi Happy will be largely overlooked in the turf stakes.

Hi Happy was the 2015 Horse of the Year in Argentina, ending the season with a win in the Group 1 Gran Premio Carlos Pellegrini last December, the top race of the year in South America.

The nearly year-long layoff concerns trainer Felipe Souza, who has looked after Hi Happy at the San Luis Rey Downs training center in San Diego county since the colt’s arrival in California in the summer.

“It’s almost one year without running and that will be difficult,” Souza said Thursday morning.

Souza has a close connection to Hi Happy, who races for the La Providencia stable. Hi Happy was trained in South America by Souza’s uncle, Pedro Nickel.

“My uncle and I have been working together,” Souza said. “We do the same training that we did in Argentina.”

Hi Happy will be ridden Saturday by Altair Domingos, a South American-based jockey who has traveled to California on occasion in recent months to work Hi Happy. Domingos has ridden Hi Happy in all of his races.

“They know the horse better than I do,” Souza said. “They tell me he’s the same or better than he was in Argentina.”

Hi Happy has officially won all six of his starts, although he was promoted from second to first in the Group 1 Argentine 2000 Guineas in August 2015, his second start, after race winner Elektro Jack was disqualified. By the Storm Cat stallion Pure Prize, Hi Happy won his next four starts in Group 1 and Group 2 races.

In the Pellegrini at 1 1/2 miles on turf, Hi Happy won by 1 1/2 lengths as the 2-1 favorite in a field of 20.

Pellegrini winners rarely race in the United States. Going Somewhere, who won the race in 2012, raced in California and Texas in 2015 and earlier this year. Trained by Neil Drysdale, Going Somewhere was second in the 2015 San Juan Capistrano Handicap at Santa Anita.

Interaction, the winner of the 2009 Pellegrini, won the 2013 San Juan Capistrano for trainer Ron McAnally.

Potrillon won the 1991 Pellegrini and was later second in the Mervyn LeRoy Handicap at Hollywood Park. Chullo won the 1997 Pellegrini, but was winless in three starts for trainer Richard Mandella in California during 1999 and 2000.

Hi Happy, who had his first recorded workout in California in September, is part of a field of eight in the Seabiscuit that includes Om, Ring Weekend and Vyjack, all major stakes winners in turf stakes in the last year.

Souza, 30, has a small stable at San Luis Rey Downs. He won with two of his first 27 starters this year.

Souza said Thursday he is concerned the Seabiscuit distance is too short for Hi Happy and that Domingos will need to position his mount as a stalker to have a chance.

“He’s kind of a patient horse,” he said. “The stretch is short. We’ll try to (place) him very close.”

This winter, Souza said, Hi Happy will start in longer turf races.

“His best races are a mile and a quarter and a mile and a half,” he said. “Preferably, we’d stay on the turf.

“There are a lot of horses that come from South America and they don’t do well,” Souza said. “If he’s the same horse he was in Argentina, he’s a very good horse.”