Lammas will try tougher in Del Mar Mile

DEL MAR, Calif. – Lammas, winner of a pair of one-mile stakes on turf and dirt in Northern California in his last two starts, is bound for Del Mar later this month.

Trainer Manny Badilla said on Sunday that Lammas will be pointed for the Grade 2 Del Mar Mile on turf Aug. 31 and not the $150,000 Longacres Mile at Emerald Downs in Washington State on Sunday.

“It will be a test,” Badilla said of the $200,000 Del Mar Mile. “I’m not going to Seattle.”

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Lammas, owned by Ron Charles and Sam Gordon, has won 11 of 31 starts and is on a four-race winning streak consisting of two allowance races at Golden Gate Fields in February and early April on the synthetic main track, the Grade 3 San Francisco Mile on turf on April 27, and the Pleasanton Mile at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton on July 7.

In the Del Mar Mile, Lammas will face many of Southern California’s leading runners on turf at the distance.

“He beat some graded stakes winners,” Badilla said of the San Francisco Mile. “We’re looking for places to run. We can’t sit around and idle forever.”

On Sunday, Lammas worked five furlongs in 1:00.60 at Pleasanton.

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