Going Global ready to pick up where she left off in San Clemente
DEL MAR, Calif. – From autumn through spring, from Ireland to California, Going Global has employed a dazzling turn of foot to win five straight, including four stakes. Now it is summer at Del Mar, two months since her last start, and Going Global will run Saturday over a turf course she has never raced on as the favorite in the Grade 2 San Clemente Stakes.
Trainer Phil D’Amato expects her to pick up right where she left off.
“I’m just trying to keep her feet on the ground,” D’Amato said. “She’s raring to go.”
Going Global faces 11 rivals in the San Clemente, a mile turf race for 3-year-old fillies. None is as consistently flashy as Going Global, but the race is no walkover.
The field includes multiple stakes winner Madone and stakes winner Pizzazz, along with stakes-placed Karakatsie, Nimbostratus, and live longshot Tetragonal. Closing Remarks also is entered Friday in the Fleet Treat Stakes.
Going Global won 1 of 4 in Ireland and arrived in California relatively unknown. That did not last long. Four starts at Santa Anita produced four stakes wins.
She won the Grade 3 Sweet Life, a turf sprint in April, and improved with each subsequent start, all at two turns. Going Global won the $100,000 China Doll by three-quarters of a length, the Grade 3 Providencia by a neck, and in late May crushed the Grade 3 Honeymoon by 4 3/4 lengths.
Regular rider Flavien Prat is back aboard Saturday.
“Flavien always tells me, in a turn-of-foot race, no one’s going to beat her,” D’Amato said. “He says her turn of foot is unbelievable.”
Going Global is owned by a partnership that includes Michael Dubb, Saul Gevertz, Michael Nentwig, Ray Pagano, and CYBT.
D’Amato said Going Global is “coming into this meet peaking at the right time, hopefully with a San Clemente-Del Mar Oaks double in our sights.”
That is not easy. The past two decades, Evening Jewel in 2010 is the only San Clemente winner to repeat in Del Mar Oaks, which is scheduled for Aug. 21.
Madone, 4 for 6, won the Del Mar Juvenile Fillies Turf last fall and Grade 3 Senorita in May. She misfired in the Honeymoon while bouncing from her comeback three weeks earlier. Freshened by trainer Simon Callaghan, Madone will be ridden Saturday by Juan Hernandez.
Tetragonal enters as an upset candidate for trainer Richard Baltas, who won the 2016 and 2017 San Clemente with longshots Mokat ($16.40) and Madam Dancealot ($44.40). Tetragonal has been highly regarded since arriving from Europe last summer.
After a troubled seventh in her U.S. debut, she missed by a neck to Madone in a stakes race at Santa Anita, and shipped to Keeneland for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. She did not get the chance; a bone chip ended her campaign.
“It was a small chip, we took it out and gave her time,” Baltas said.
She finished next to last in her comeback prep, then won an entry-level allowance on May 22 at Santa Anita. Baltas said that Tetragonal has been “breaking the barn down” since arriving at Del Mar. Joe Bravo rides.