Smooth Like Strait gets cushy spot in Wickerr
Del Mar is where Smooth Like Strait got started, and despite drawing a tough post on Sunday, Del Mar is where the 5-year-old’s recent frustrations likely will end.
Ranked among the country’s top turf milers but 0 for 6 the past year, Smooth Like Strait drops into a restricted stakes on Sunday. If there was such a thing as a lock, Smooth Like Strait would be just that in the $100,000 Wickerr Stakes. There is one problem, however.
“I can’t say I’m happy about post 12,” trainer Michael McCarthy acknowledged. “That’s the hand we’re dealt. This is the race I’ve been pointing to for a while.”
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Thirteen entered the Wickerr, a turf mile restricted to nonwinners of $50,000 in a stakes at a mile or more since Sept. 1. The conditions favor Smooth Like Strait, whose frustrating drought includes five seconds and a third in Grade 1 and Grade 2 races.
“I didn’t think he’d be eligible to [the Wickerr] at this point,” McCarthy said. “A couple of tough beats.”
Those include a runner-up finish last out in the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile at Santa Anita, where Smooth Like Strait pressed a suicidal pace, sizzled six furlongs in 1:09.02, and tired. In his previous start he was third by a neck in the Grade 1 Maker’s Mark Mile at Keeneland.
Juan Hernandez rides Smooth Like Strait for the first time Sunday in race 8. The horse is the class of the Wickerr, a turf mile that favorites have won 11 of the past 22 years. His main rivals include graded-winning sprinters Bran and Gregorian Chant, and Cal-bred stakes winner Indian Peak. Storm the Court, 2019 champion juvenile male, also entered.
Smooth Like Strait is owned by his breeder, the Cannon Thoroughbreds of Michael and Jennifer Cannon, and is racing Sunday in familiar surroundings. He debuted at Del Mar in summer 2019, won his first stakes at Del Mar that fall, earned his first Grade 1 placing at Del Mar when second in the 2020 Hollywood Derby and the biggest payday of his career ($340,000) finishing second in the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Mile at Del Mar.
Yes, Smooth Like Strait likes the Del Mar turf, where his six starts include two wins and four seconds. The Grade 1 winner has speed to establish position from the outside, and should be tough to beat. He has won seven races and more than $1.5 million from 21 starts.
Two chief rivals stretch out from turf sprints. Bran won the Grade 3 Daytona Stakes at Santa Anita last out; Gregorian Chant drops from running in Grade 2s and Grade 1s. Bran has never raced two turns, but Gregorian Chant won a Del Mar allowance route in 2020 for trainer Phil D’Amato.
“It’s my feeling that horses that have [been sprinting], when they come back to their first two-turn race in a while, it’s usually their best race,” D’Amato said. “I’d rather take that shot than run back at five-eighths of a mile.”