Catch a Flight targets Pacific Classic

DEL MAR, Calif. – Catch a Flight has won three graded stakes for older horses in Southern California since early May, including Saturday’s $200,500 San Diego Handicap at Del Mar.

That victory will lead to a start in the $1 million Pacific Classic at 1 1/4 miles on Aug. 22, the richest race of the Del Mar summer meeting. The Grade 1 Pacific Classic will be a chance for Catch a Flight to become the clear leader of the circuit’s older horses.

“He just keeps getting better and better,” trainer Richard Mandella said after Saturday’s race. On Sunday, Mandella said he feared Catch a Flight would not win the San Diego Handicap as the race unfolded. Catch a Flight was third on the turn, trailing pacesetters Bayern and Appealing Tale by four lengths.

Ridden by Gary Stevens, Catch a Flight caught Bayern in the final sixteenth and Appealing Tale in the last strides to win the race at 1 1/16 miles by a head.

“I thought at the quarter pole we’d be third,” Mandella said.

Owned by Julio Bozano’s Haras Santa Maria de Araras, Catch a Flight, a 5-year-old Argentine-bred by Giant’s Causeway, has won 10 of 17 starts in his career and four of seven starts since joining Mandella’s stable late last year.

In May at Santa Anita, Catch a Flight won the Grade 3 Precisionist Stakes at 1 1/16 miles and the Grade 2 Californian Stakes at 1 1/8 miles.

Two of his losses have come in Grade 1 races at 1 1/4 miles – the $1,001,750 Santa Anita Handicap in March and the $501,500 Gold Cup at Santa Anita on June 27. In the latter race, Stevens urged Catch a Flight to challenge Moreno on the turn, and Catch a Flight tired late. In the San Diego, Stevens timed the race perfectly.

The Pacific Classic field will include at least two other runners from the San Diego in third- and fourth-place finishers Bayern and Hoppertunity, both trained by Bob Baffert. Bayern, the winner of the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Classic, was beaten 1 1/4 lengths by Appealing Tale, fading in the final furlong. He had finished last in his two previous starts – the Grade 2 Churchill Downs Stakes on May 2 and the Metropolitan Mile Handicap at Belmont Park on June 6.

“He acted like he needed it,” Baffert said Sunday. “He didn’t get anything out of the last race.”

Hoppertunity was beaten a nose by Hard Aces in the Gold Cup at Santa Anita and was beaten a nose by Bayern for third in the San Diego.

“He wants a mile and a quarter,” Baffert said of Hoppertunity. “He was rolling at the end.”

Other candidates for the Pacific Classic include Hard Aces, Imperative, who was second in the $1.5 million Charles Town Classic in West Virginia in April in his last start, and Red Vine, who is trained by Christophe Clement and was second in the Grade 3 Salvator Mile at Monmouth Park on July 5.

Appealing Tale is a candidate for the $300,000 Pat O’Brien Stakes at seven furlongs Aug. 22, trainer Peter Miller said Saturday.

“If he’s doing well, that’s what we’ll point him for,” Miller said. “I couldn’t be happier in defeat. Races at seven-eighths to a mile are in his wheelhouse.”