Freshman sires dominate Del Mar juvenile stakes

As the season for the younger set heats up, freshman sires swept the weekend’s graded stakes races for 2-year-olds at Del Mar.

On Saturday in the Grade 2 Best Pal Stakes – a race won in recent years by champions Lookin At Lucky (2009) and Nyquist (2015) – Weston edged Girther by a neck, keying an exacta for Spendthrift Farm freshman sires. Weston, who has won both his starts for trainer Ryan Hanson and co-owner Chris Drakos, is from the first crop of Hit It a Bomb, who won all three of his starts as a juvenile. The son of War Front capped his campaign by winning the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Keeneland.

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Girther is from the first crop of Brody’s Cause, a dual Grade 1 winner at Keeneland of the Breeders’ Futurity and Blue Grass Stakes.

Meanwhile, My Girl Red won the Grade 2 Sorrento Stakes for fillies on Friday for owner-breeder Erich Brehm and trainer Keith Desormeaux, who were among the partners in her sire, Texas Red. That freshman stallion, standing at Crestwood Farm, won the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

Texas Red and Hit It a Bomb are the first North American freshman sires to record black-type winners this season. The wins pushed them into third and fifth, respectively, on the earnings list currently led by Speightster.

Meanwhile, two other freshman sires recorded their first winners on Sunday. Grade 2 winner Anchor Down, standing alongside sire Tapit at Gainesway, was represented by the victorious Drop Anchor at Ellis Park. Taylor Made’s freshman Mshawish, a versatile multiple Grade 1 winner, saw his daughter Miss Wild roll by 15 lengths at Monmouth.