No joke: Greyvitos gets first win in Bob Hope Stakes
DEL MAR, Calif. – Greyvitos was the only horse in the Grade 3, $100,345 Bob Hope Stakes without a victory, but that all ended in a bit more than 82 seconds on Saturday at Del Mar when he scored a front-running 19-1 upset in the seven-furlong sprint for 2-year-olds.
Greyvitos ($41.80), the second-longest shot in the six-horse field, sped to the lead from his inside draw, set legitimately fast fractions under Victor Espinoza, and spurned the bid of favored Mourinho before prevailing by 1 1/2 lengths.
Mourinho, sent off at 6-5, finished 7 3/4 lengths clear of third-place Beautiful Shot, then came Italiano, Run Away, and Here Is Happy.
Greyvitos completed seven furlongs on the fast main track in 1:22.20 after setting splits of 22.66 seconds for the opening quarter, 45.20 for a half-mile, and 1:09.56 for six furlongs. This was a very fast race, and a sharply improved effort for a horse who wore blinkers for the first time on Saturday.
Mourinho loomed dangerously at the top of the lane, but appeared to try and bear in and flattened out a bit late.
Run Away, winner of 4 of 5 prior starts, began to retreat on the far turn and wound up 10 3/4 lengths behind Greyvitos in the worst race of his career.
Adam Kitchingman, who trains Greyvitos for Michelle Boghossian’s Triple B Farms, said he hoped Greyvitos would be on the lead after “climbing really badly” in his prior start, when he finished third in a maiden race at Santa Anita on Oct. 21 going 5 1/2 furlongs.
That Oct. 21 race came 3 1/2 months after his lone prior start, in a two-turn grass race at Santa Anita on July 1. Kitchingman said Greyvitos came out of his debut with a sore tibia – “like a bucked shin, but in a hind leg,” he said – that required 45 days of jogging and forced him to miss the summer meet here.
Greyvitos (pronounced GREY-vi-toss, Kitchingman said) will be pointed to the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Futurity on Dec. 9, Kitchingman said.
Greyvitos is a colt by Malibu Moon who was purchased as a yearling for $100,000 by Triple B, which is now run by Michelle Boghossian, the widow of longtime owner Paul Boghossian.
“He’s from the first crop of horses we bought for Michelle,” Kitchingman said.