Although their credentials stood out, the winners of the two stakes here over the holiday weekend just managed to get the job done. Tamarando, a Grade 1 winner, rallied from last to win the Grade 3 El Camino Real Derby by a half-length on Saturday. Zeewat, who had more stakes wins, four, than the rest of the field combined, won the $50,000 Lost in the Fog in the final stride Monday. Both were trained by Jerry Hollendorfer and ridden by Russell Baze. The pair teamed up to win the El Camino Real Derby for the fifth time. Tamarando gave Baze his ninth victory in the stakes and Hollendorfer his sixth. Tamarando ran in the El Camino in part because his owner-breeders, Larry and Marianne Williams, preferred to run him over the Golden Gate Tapeta surface than over a Santa Anita dirt track that has been kind to speed. He also ran in part because the Hollendorfer-trained Exit Stage Left, undefeated in three starts, all stakes, had been injured one week earlier and couldn’t make the race. The decision was a wise one as Tamarando, who won last year’s Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity, picked up 10 Kentucky Derby qualifying points. He now has 12 points, including two from last year’s Grade 1 FrontRunner, and is tied for fifth in the point standings with Midnight Hawk behind Tapiture (22) and Havana, Cairo Prince, and Honor Code (14 each). The points will be used to determine starters in the May 3 Kentucky Derby should more than 20 horses be entered. Hollendorfer isn’t thinking Kentucky Derby yet with Tamarando, but he intends to give the colt every chance to take him there. “I’ve always had a saying that the horse takes you to the Derby, and if he takes us, we’ll show up,” Hollendorfer said after the race. Hollendorfer said the Grade 3, $550,000 Spiral Stakes at Turfway Park on March 22 could be Tamarando’s next start. Turfway has a synthetic surface, and all four of Tamarando’s victories have come on synthetic surfaces. The other option might be the Grade 1, $750,000 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland on April 12. Hollendorfer is considering keeping Tamarando at Golden Gate Fields to train on the track’s Tapeta surface rather than try to prepare for the Spiral on Santa Anita’s dirt track. Hollendorfer has won the Spiral Stakes twice when it was called the Jim Beam, with Event of the Year in 1998 and Globalize in 2000. Both were injured in the final week before the Kentucky Derby. Dance With Fate, who split decisions with Tamarando in the Del Mar Futurity and the FrontRunner stakes, ran second in the El Camino and was 2 1/4 lengths in front of favored Enterprising, who finished third. Dance With Fate has eight qualifying points. He has not been nominated to the Triple Crown, but he is definitely going to Kentucky for his next race, according to trainer Peter Eurton. “It will definitely be the Blue Grass,” Eurton said. “It’s 60 days, which is pretty long between starts, but I think that he’ll like the surface.” It’s all in the timing Baze showed perfect timing in both the El Camino Real Derby and the Lost in the Fog. Alhough Tamarando sat in last place for the first six furlongs of the nine-furlong El Camino Real, he was only about five lengths off the leaders – several lengths closer than usual. A slow pace forced Baze to make his move earlier than he had planned. “I’d have preferred to wait a little bit longer, but with the slower pace I knew I had to move a bit sooner,” he said. The move paid off. Tamarando pulled to within a length of the leader in midstretch and outfinished Dance With Fate. In the six-furlong Lost in the Fog, Zeewat trailed by seven lengths after the opening quarter and had made up a bit of ground by the time he reached the quarter pole. In the lane, Baze wasn’t sure Zeewat could catch the leader, No Silent. Baze sent Zeewat between Mah Gellin and Administer, but said he didn’t get instant acceleration. “I thought he’d force through quicker, but [Administer] came out against him, and that got him going again,” Baze said. Zeewat runs with his head down and extended, and that made the difference at the finish line, where No Silent’s head was up. The final time was 1:09.65 and the final eighth was run in 11.99 seconds, which would win most races for No Silent, but not this time. ◗ Cant Do the Danse, entered in Friday’s second race here, had a best-of-34 five-furlong work of 59.60 seconds Saturday. Johnny Reb, one of his rivals in the $20,000 maiden claimer, had the second fastest time of the day, 1:00.20. According to head clocker Art Lobato, Cant Do the Danse was the first worker in two weeks to break the one-minute mark for five furlongs.