Belvoir, Gold Rush Dancer hitting their stride

DEL MAR, Calif. – Trainer Vann Belvoir went to the 2012 Barretts January mixed sale in Pomona, Calif., to fulfill a request from a breeder in Washington: Find an inexpensive broodmare.

Belvoir spent a grand total of $1,000 on Dances On Water, a 5-year-old unraced mare by In Excess, for owner and breeder John Parker. Dances On Water is no longer a cheap broodmare. She is the dam of Gold Rush Dancer, a three-time stakes winner.

In May, Gold Rush Dancer gave Parker and Belvoir their first six-figure stakes win in the $100,450 Silky Sullivan Stakes at Golden Gate Fields. On Sunday, Gold Rush Dancer will start in the $250,000 Del Mar Derby, a Grade 2 turf race. For Parker, a win would be his first in a graded stakes. Belvoir is seeking his first win in a Grade 2 stakes.

“We’re ‘Moneyball,’ ” Belvoir said. “We’re like the Oakland A’s.”

Like the baseball team with bargain players, Belvoir has had success this year with low-priced horses lacking regal pedigrees. Five days after the Silky Sullivan Stakes, Belvoir won his first graded stakes with Rocket Heat in the Grade 3 Twin Spires Turf Sprint at Churchill Downs on May 6. Belvoir claimed Rocket Heat for $30,000 in early 2015 to race for Mike Sanchez.

Those stakes horses have put Belvoir, 42, on pace for a record year. Through Sunday, he had stable earnings of $740,630 this year, within range of his personal best of $947,217, set in 2015.

“Let’s make it a million, baby,” Belvoir said on Sunday.

Gold Rush Dancer has won 3 of 5 starts and earned $296,530 this year. He has won both of his starts on turf, including a nose win in the Snow Chief Stakes for California-breds at 1 1/8 miles at Santa Anita on May 28. On July 27 at Del Mar, Gold Rush Dancer won the Real Good Deal Stakes for statebreds at seven furlongs on dirt.

The Del Mar Derby, at 1 1/8 miles on turf, will be the 12th consecutive stakes race for Gold Rush Dancer. The colt began his career at Emerald Downs in Washington, where he won the Gottstein Futurity last September for trainer Bill Tollett.

Gold Rush Dancer joined Belvoir’s stable last winter. The Del Mar Derby will be the richest race of the horse’s career.

“I think we’re live,” Belvoir said. “We’re in a good spot. I think he’ll be forwardly placed. If the pace is too slow in this race, he can go to the front.”

Gold Rush Dancer will be ridden by Flavien Prat, the leading rider at the summer meeting. Prat has been aboard Gold Rush Dancer for his three stakes wins this year, and had to work for each one. In the Snow Chief and Real Good Deal, Gold Rush Dancer led through the final furlong but seemed to be waiting on rivals until challenged, particularly in the Real Good Deal.

“When the horse gets to the front, he thinks the game is over,” Belvoir said.

Belvoir is well versed in what Prat faces as a rider. A former jockey, Belvoir won 1,353 races and was the leading rider at Emerald Downs in the track’s first year, 1996, before he turned to training.

Belvoir began shifting the stable south earlier this decade, first to Golden Gate Fields and then to Southern California in 2011, moving his wife, Sauci, and their two children.

The quality of the stable’s runners has slowly improved. Gold Rush Dancer gave Belvoir his first stakes wins at Del Mar, Golden Gate Fields, and Santa Anita.

The transition to Southern California took time, but Belvoir saw it as a risk-free move.

“I said at the time, ‘If we get beat up, we’ll go back up,’ ” Belvoir said. “There was no pressure. We had Seattle and Golden Gate.”

That has changed. His stable has 25 horses at Del Mar and will grow to 40 when Santa Anita resumes in late September. Belvoir is focused on Southern California.

“This is the place to be on the West Coast,” he said.