Speed Boat Beach sets Del Mar record for 5 1/2 furlongs, gets 104 Beyer

DEL MAR, Calif. - Speed Boat Beach lowered the track record for 5 1/2 furlongs to 1:01.86 with a win in a maiden special weight race for 2-year-olds in his debut at Del Mar on Saturday.

Speed Boat Beach was given a massive Beyer Speed Figure of 104, the highest of the year for a juvenile.

Ridden by Flavien Prat, Speed Boat Beach ($6.40) led throughout and won by 1 1/4 lengths over 11-10 favorite Hejazi, who was purchased for $3.55 million at auction earlier this year. Fort Bragg finished third, giving Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert a sweep of the first three positions.

Speed Boat Beach, by Bayern, races for Mike Pegram, Karl Watson and Paul Weitman, and was purchased for $200,000 at auction earlier this year. Typical of a Baffert-trained runner, Speed Boat Beach had a series of fast workouts since early August.

“He’s trained like a fast colt all along,” said Jimmy Barnes, Baffert’s assistant.

Speed Boat Beach is out of the unraced mare Sophia Mia, by Pioneerof the Nile. Sophia Mia is out of Amie’s Dini, who won the $75,000 Martha Washington Stakes at for 3-year-old fillies at a mile at Oaklawn Park in 2012 and was third in the Grade 2 Delaware Oaks at 1 1/16 miles later that year.

Speed Boat Beach broke the previous track record of 1:02.10 set by the Baffert-trained Power Jam in the restricted Pirate’s Bounty Stakes in 2016.

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