D'Amato has trio set for Seabiscuit Handicap

DEL MAR, Calif. – Trainer Phil D’Amato will be taking aim at four of the seven turf festival stakes that highlight the final week of the Del Mar fall season next week, beginning with Tiny Tina in the Grade 3, $100,000 Red Carpet on Thanksgiving Day and concluding with Storm the Hill in the Grade 1, $300,000 Matriarch Stakes on closing day, Dec. 1.

But it’s Saturday when he will take perhaps his best swing, with a trio of Andesh, Cleopatra’s Strike, and Prince Earl in the Grade 2, $200,000 Seabiscuit Handicap for 3-year-olds and up at 1 1/16 miles.

Cleopatra’s Strike won the Grade 2 John Henry at Santa Anita in his last start, then bypassed the Breeders’ Cup. Similarly, Prince Earl was kept out of the Breeders’ Cup after being a narrowly beaten third in the Grade 2 City of Hope Mile at Santa Anita.

The D’Amato-trained Bowies Hero, the Shadwell Mile winner who ran in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, is off until next year. Acclimate, who ran in the Breeders’ Cup Turf, is skipping the Grade 2, $200,000 Hollywood Turf Cup at 1 1/2 miles on Friday.

“Him and Bowies Hero, I’m giving them a couple of months off to have them ready for a campaign next year,” D’Amato said Friday morning.

D’Amato still will have a strong contender in the Turf Cup in the rapidly improving Overdue, who will be making his stakes debut after winning his last two starts, both in an allowance company, after switching to Mike Smith, who has the mount Friday.

The horse to beat in the Turf Cup is United, second most recently in the Breeders’ Cup Turf.