Edgeway outlasts Slammed to take Rancho Bernardo Handicap

DEL MAR, Calif. - The Grade 3 Rancho Bernardo Handicap at Del Mar on Sunday had five runners, but in the end was a thrilling match race between Edgeway and Slammed.

The duel started at the three-eighths pole, with the New Mexico star Slammed racing on the inside of the multiple graded stakes winner Edgeway.

Slammed led by a head on the turn, with Edgeway only a half-length in front of Dance to the Music. By early stretch, they were clear of the other three fillies and mares.

With a furlong remaining, Slammed, ridden by Drayden Van Dyke, led by a head over Edgeway, who was ridden by Juan Hernandez, and yielded the lead only in the final sixteenth.

Edgeway won by a half-length in one of the most exciting stretch finishes of a stakes in California this year.

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“The race was a battle from the three-eighths to the wire,” Hernandez said. “At the three-eighths, I started to pick it up. I felt in the last couple of jumps she was getting there."

Edgeway ($3.80) ran 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:15.97, with Slammed, who was also 4-5, finishing 7 1/2 lengths clear of 37-1 Cover Version. Empire House and Dance to the Music completed the order of finish.

Edgeway earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 91.

Private Mission, a three-time graded stakes winner, was scratched on Sunday morning and will start in the Grade 2 Zenyatta Stakes at Santa Anita on Oct. 2, trainer Bob Baffert said.

Hernandez, the leading rider at the current Del Mar summer meeting, rode Edgeway for the first time in the $150,000 Rancho Bernardo Handicap, but was aboard the 5-year-old mare for a recent workout.

“I worked her a few weeks ago and I knew I had a lot of horse,” he said.

Edgeway, who races for Hronis Racing and trainer John Sadler, won the 2021 Rancho Bernardo and was later second in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint here last November.

By Competitive Edge, Edgeway has won 8 of 13 starts and $753,860. The BC Filly and Mare Sprint at Keeneland on Nov. 5 is a goal this fall, Sadler said.

Slammed has won 8 of 11 starts and earned $378,005 for the partnership of Brad King, Suzanne Kirby and trainer Todd Fincher. She has won six stakes for New Mexico-breds.

The Rancho Bernardo was her first start in a graded stakes.

‘I’m super happy for her,” Van Dyke said. “If we could have flip-flopped post positions, who knows? She ran a great race.”