Hunt targets Seabiscuit Handicap; Isotherm points to Native Diver

DEL MAR, Calif. – Hunt didn’t make it to Kentucky for the Breeders’ Cup. Isotherm did but might as well have stayed home, as he was no factor in the Dirt Mile. It was not a particularly memorable Breeders’ Cup for trainer Phil D’Amato, but he’s ready to regroup with both of those runners at Del Mar, as both are among those he expects to run in graded stakes at the end of the season here.

Hunt was intended for the Mile on turf but did not travel to Kentucky when he spiked a temperature.

He has since recovered and is pointing to the Grade 2, $200,000 Seabiscuit Handicap going 1 1/16 miles on turf Nov. 24, a race he won last year.

Hunt has won nine times in 29 starts and is less than $100,000 shy of earning $1 million. He has raced just three times this year, his biggest win coming in the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile at Santa Anita in May in his first start of the year.

Isotherm finished last of nine in the Dirt Mile. He came out of the race fine and will be pointed to the Grade 3, $100,000 Native Diver going 1 1/8 miles on the main track Nov. 25.

“A lot of the California horses either loved or hated the surface at Churchill Downs,” D’Amato said Friday. “He hated it. He kept running in place in that sand.”

Isotherm, 5, has now lost 10 straight since his victory in the Grade 2 San Marcos at Santa Anita in February 2017. He was third behind Accelerate – the subsequent winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic – and West Coast in the Grade 1 Awesome Again in his race prior to the Dirt Mile.

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