Living The Life won't run in Monrovia Stakes

Living The Life, who likely would have been one of the top contenders in Sunday’s Grade 2 Monrovia Stakes, will be forced to bypass the race, trainer Gary Mandella said Wednesday morning.

“She worked great last weekend, and then came out of it sick,” Mandella said. “She had mucus and was coughing. I guess we’ll have to wait for the next race down the hill. It’s really frustrating, because there aren’t many opportunities to run in a Grade 2 turf sprint for $200,000.”

Living The Life scored the biggest win of her career in the Grade 2 Presque Isle Masters in September. She most recently finished last of 10 in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, which was her first start on dirt.

Om ready to resume training

The most productive race of the meet for maiden 2-year-olds at Del Mar turned out to be the fourth on Aug. 9. American Pharoah finished fifth making his debut in that race, then subsequently won a pair of Grade 1 races, the Del Mar Futurity and FrontRunner Stakes. Calculator finished fourth, and subsequently finished second to American Pharoah in the Del Mar Futurity and FrontRunner. One Lucky Dane, who was third, later ran in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, and Daddy D T, who was sixth, went on to finish third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf.

The race winner, Om, hasn’t been seen since, but he’s about to return to trainer Dan Hendricks’s barn at Santa Anita, Hendricks said Wednesday morning.

“He’s been turned out for the last four months,” said Hendricks, who said he never found anything seriously wrong with Om, but was not satisfied with the way he was training. “He’s been at Julie Adair-Stack’s farm, in light training for the past month. He’ll come back to me in about a week.”