Neige Blanche goes for repeat in CTT and TOC Stakes
DEL MAR, Calif. – The course, distance, even the race are all ideal for Neige Blanche, who will try to win her third straight race at Del Mar when she defends her title Friday in the $100,000 CTT and TOC Stakes, a 1 3/8-mile grass race for older females.
Neige Blanche won this race last year in her first start in two months after competing in the Grade 3 Santa Ana, Grade 3 Santa Barbara, and Possibly Perfect at Santa Anita. Leonard Powell – who trains Neige Blanche for a partnership that includes his wife, Mathilde – has followed a similar script this year, and Neige Blanche heads into this year’s CTT and TOC perhaps in even better form than a year ago.
Neige Blanche has won four of her last five starts, upping her overall record to 9 for 19. The 11-furlong races at the summer and fall meets here have been her specialty. After winning the CTT and TOC last summer, Neige Blanche came back at the fall meeting to post an 11-1 upset in the Grade 3 Red Carpet.
She won’t be anywhere close to that price Friday. In peak form, she is clearly the horse to beat, and as if she needed any more help, her regular rider is Juan Hernandez, who leads the jockeys’ standings here and is the runaway leader among stakes wins, with seven.
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The CTT and TOC – named for the California Thoroughbred Trainers and Thoroughbred Owners of California organizations – drew a field of nine, including three who own wins over this course already this summer and an intriguing shipper.
Duvet Day won at this distance on this course in a first-level allowance July 28 after defeating maidens at Churchill Downs going 1 3/8 miles on turf two months earlier. She is the only 3-year-old in the field.
“A mile and three-eighths certainly looks like what she was looking for,” said her trainer, Michael McCarthy. “Big ask going from an a-other-than to face some seasoned stayers like these.”
Bellamore won a second-level allowance going 1 1/8 miles here July 22 for Simon Callaghan, while Fearless Girl is coming off a first-level allowance win going a flat mile July 23 for Phil D’Amato. They are question marks at the distance.
Not so Sister Otoole, who ships in following a second-place finish in the Grade 3 Robert Dick Memorial at Delaware going 1 3/8 miles on turf July 9. Her trainer, Graham Motion, sent her west along with the high-class 3-year-old filly Spendarella, who goes in the Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks on Saturday.
“I probably wouldn’t have come out if I wasn’t coming out with the other filly,” Motion said from the Fair Hill Training Center. “Back here you have to run in a Grade 2. There’s not much in between.”
The CTT and TOC is race 7 on an eight-race card that begins at 3 p.m. Pacific. All Friday cards the rest of the meet commence at 3 p.m.