Both Glatt runners merit respect on Friday's program

CYPRESS, Calif. – Trainer Mark Glatt’s stable is on course for a record season in 2016.

Glatt won a career-best 59 races in 2000, and could surpass that this year. Through Wednesday, Glatt had 44 wins in 2016, and has excellent chances with It’s Just Bob and Saint Dermot at Los Alamitos on Friday.

Neither is a major runner in the stable, but both are well placed on a modest eight-race program. It’s Just Bob runs in a $16,000 claimer for 3-year-olds at six furlongs, while Saint Dermot runs in a starter allowance at a mile.

Glatt rates both as contenders. His stable won 12 races from 64 starters at the Del Mar summer meeting, and had one win from three starters in the first week of the current Los Angeles County Fair meeting at Los Alamitos.

Glatt said his late-summer results could have been better were it not for an illness that cost him several starters at Del Mar.

“You never know how things will go from meet to meet,” he said. “I was a little concerned going in that I might not have a great meet. I had a lot of horses get sick down there. It could have been better. I had five, six, or seven horses get pretty sick. They would have been live horses.”

Glatt claimed It’s Just Bob for Jim Hailey for $16,000 on Aug. 13, the day the 3-year-old was beaten a head. It’s Just Bob was gelded days later. Glatt said he will know in the post parade what kind of performance to expect from It’s Just Bob.

“I didn’t know the horse that well since I just claimed him,” Glatt said. “I noticed before he got hot in the paddock.

“His action in the post parade will tell the story. I would suspect that he wouldn’t get nearly as uptight as he did while he was still a stud. Sometimes you see instant results and sometimes it takes a little while.”

It’s Just Bob is part of a field of six which includes Redneck Crazy and Loyalist, who were second and third in their last start.

Saint Dermot won a starter handicap at Santa Anita on July 4 and was second as the favorite in an optional claimer at Del Mar in August and one on Sept. 5.

The timing of Friday’s race is a slight concern, according to Glatt.

“It’s a little bit quick back for him, he said. “I’m not sure he’ll run just yet, but I think so. The conditions of the race fit him perfectly.”

The starter allowance will be the 50th start for Spud Spivens, an 8-year-old gelding who won a $25,000 claimer at Del Mar on Aug. 20.