Invaders give Twilight Derby a national feel

ARCADIA, Calif. – The stakes for California’s 3-year-old turf division are no longer intramural affairs.

So far this year, the leading races have included mostly locally based runners, but there is a distinctly national feel to Saturday’s Grade 2 Twilight Derby at Santa Anita. The $200,000 Twilight Derby is run at 1 1/8 miles on turf.

The expected participation of Channel Maker (trained by Bill Mott), Cowboy Culture (Brad Cox), Just Howard (Graham Motion), and Profiteer (Shug McGaughey) gives the race greater depth than the earlier races for 3-year-old turf runners.

Channel Maker won the Breeders’ Stakes at Woodbine in August and was sixth in the Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic against older horses at Belmont Park on Sept. 30.

Cowboy Culture has won consecutive stakes for 3-year-olds at Arlington Park and Indiana Grand. Just Howard won the Grade 3 Commonwealth Derby at Laurel on Sept. 30, beating Profiteer, who finished third.

They will face a local group that will probably be led by Sharp Samurai, Big Score, and Bowies Hero, the first three finishers of the Grade 2 Del Mar Derby on Sept. 3. Sharp Samurai has won three consecutive stakes, all for Jed and Tim Cohen and trainer Mark Glatt.

Bowies Hero was beaten a length in the Del Mar Derby under jockey Tiago Pereira. On Wednesday, trainer Phil D’Amato said Kent Desormeaux will ride Bowies Hero for the first time in the Twilight Derby.

“With Kent Desormeaux, I don’t think there is anyone better on the grass,” D’Amato said. “The way he’s riding, I thought we’d take a shot. The other contenders beat us a length, and hopefully that will be the difference.”

Pereira had Bowies Hero four wide on the turn of the Del Mar Derby and lost his whip in the stretch. All of that may have cost Bowies Hero a length, according to D’Amato.

“I think we would have been right there at the wire,” he said.

Owned by Mark Martinez and Jeff Hebert, Bowies Hero has won three one-mile turf stakes. He has lost both of his starts at 1 1/8 miles on turf – finishing a troubled fourth in the Grade 3 Pennine Ridge Stakes at Belmont Park in June and third in the Del Mar Derby.

“I don’t think distance is a problem,” D’Amato said. “I think when this horse is right, the extra eighth of a mile is no problem at all.”

D’Amato will have a longshot in the Twilight Derby in Troublewithatee, who has won consecutive starts in a maiden race and a first-level optional claimer and will have his stakes debut in the Twilight Derby.

“I think the horse is on an upward swing,” D’Amato said. “We thought a lot of him as a 2-year-old. We gelded him off a layoff and since he’s come back he’s been a different horse.”

Saturday’s program also includes the $70,000 Comma to the Top Stakes at a mile. The race was formerly known as the Big Bear Stakes, and could produce a few runners for the Grade 3 Native Diver Stakes at 1 1/8 miles at Del Mar on Nov. 25.

The Comma to the Top Stakes is expected to be the comeback of the 6-year-old Hoppertunity, who has not raced since finishing sixth in the $10 million Dubai World Cup at Meydan Racecourse on March 25.

A six-time stakes winner, Hoppertunity won the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park in 2016 and was fourth in the BC Classic at Santa Anita a month later.

The autumn meeting at Santa Anita ends on Sunday. The top race on the program is the Grade 3 Autumn Miss Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at a mile on turf.

The Del Mar autumn meeting begins on Wednesday, highlighted by the Breeders’ Cup races on Nov. 3-4.