Omaha Beach could resume training this week

DEL MAR, Calif. – Omaha Beach could resume training by the end of the week after his summer schedule was disrupted over the weekend by illness, trainer Richard Mandella said.

Widely considered one of the nation’s leading 3-year-olds, Omaha Beach will miss a scheduled start in the $100,000 Shared Belief Stakes for 3-year-olds at a mile at Del Mar on Sunday. Mandella said on Sunday that Omaha Beach had shown improvement over the weekend and that a blood test “was good.”

“It’s a virus, not an infection,” Mandella said. “He had a temperature of 101 and a fifth, barely over normal. There was a little something there. Hopefully, it won’t take long to get him back to the track.

“He could be training by the end of the week, if it all goes good.”

The tentative plan is to start Omaha Beach in the Grade 1 Awesome Again Stakes at Santa Anita on Sept. 28, he said. The $300,000 Awesome Again Stakes is run at 1 1/8 miles and would be Omaha Beach’s first start against older males.

Omaha Beach won the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park in April and missed the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 4 when he was diagnosed with an entrapped epiglottis that required a minor procedure.

Omaha Beach was rested through May and returned to California in June. Mandella said Omaha Beach’s throat was examined on Saturday morning as a precaution and that no abnormalities were found.

Owned by Rick Porter, Omaha Beach has won 3 of 7 starts and earned $1,121,800. He won a division of the Grade 2 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park in March in his stakes debut.

In April, Spendthrift Farm in Kentucky acquired the stallion rights to Omaha Beach at the conclusion of his racing career. Mandella said on Sunday he is hopeful Ohama Beach will race as an older horse.

“I hope he can race again next year,” he said.

Mandella had a difficult weekend with horses intended for stakes. United, second in the Grade 2 Charles Whittingham Stakes at Santa Anita in May, was withdrawn from Saturday’s Grade 2 Del Mar Handicap because of illness. Bombard, who won the restricted Wickerr Stakes at a mile on turf on July 21, was scratched from Sunday’s Grade 2 Del Mar Mile because of a bruised foot.

Mandella was uncertain when United would race again.

“I’ve got to find a race now,” he said. “He’s jumping out of his skin.”