Juvenile Tap the Wire worth following

ARCADIA, Calif.-The 2-year-old colt Tap the Wire will be worth following in California-bred stakes at Del Mar this summer.

On Saturday at Santa Anita, Tap the Wire won his debut in a maiden race for statebreds at 4 1/2 furlongs. Owned by breeders John and Allegra Ernst, Tap the Wire was always near the front and drew away to win by 3 3/4 lengths in a 21-1 upset.

“We’ve liked him from the beginning,” trainer Dan Dunham said. “He promised us a lot in the morning.”

Dunham saw promise in March when Tap the Wire worked well at short distances at Del Mar, the first workouts of his career.

With no stakes for 2-year-olds at the current Santa Anita meeting, or at the Los Alamitos summer meeting, Tap the Wire may not race again until the $100,000 Graduation Stakes for Cal-breds at Del Mar on Aug. 4. Such a schedule is fine with Dunham.

“With the babies, it takes a little time to get them there,” he said. “A little time off won’t hurt them.”

Dunham, 52, has 35 horses in training at San Luis Rey Downs. About half his stable are 2-year-olds or horses returning from a rest that are being prepared on behalf of other trainers based at Santa Anita.

“I get a lot of horses ready for a lot of people up here,” he said. “San Luis Rey is a good place to get babies started.”

The training center, based in northern San Diego county, reopened in April after it was closed in December following a devastating wildfire in which 46 horses were killed, including two trained by Dunham. From early December until last month, Del Mar was open for training for stables typically based at San Luis Rey Downs.