Wong primed to break out at Del Mar

In 2019, trainer Jonathan Wong made his fist extensive venture to the Del Mar summer meeting. Wong, who is based primarily at Golden Gate Fields, won six races from 38 starters. By comparison, the 31-year-old trainer won five races from 16 starters at Del Mar summer meetings from 2015 to 2018.

Much has changed in the last year.

Wong’s status among Southern California trainers has risen, thanks to the support of Tom and Debbie Stull’s Tommy Town Thoroughbreds, and notably the success of their 4-year-old filly Keeper Ofthe Stars.

This summer at Del Mar, Wong will have 10 stalls, with plans for frequent turnover of the stable roster. Numerous horses will travel up and down Interstate 5 from Wong’s 50-horse stable at Golden Gate Fields. Some runners, notably Keeper Ofthe Stars, will be at Del Mar through the summer.

“We’ll run a bunch from up here,” Wong said earlier this week. “I think what we’ll have will be competitive.”

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Keeper Ofthe Stars will be the focus of the stable and could start twice in Grade 2 turf races – the Yellow Ribbon Handicap at 1 1/16 miles on Aug. 8, and the John Mabee Stakes at 1 1/8 miles on Sept. 5.

Keeper Ofthe Stars has been a milestone horse for Wong. She gave the San Francisco native his first graded stakes win in the Grade 3 Autumn Miss Stakes at Santa Anita last October, his first Grade 2 win in a 36-1 upset in the Buena Vista Stakes at Santa Anita in February, and his first Grade 1 win with a 7-1 surprise in the Gamely Stakes there May 25.

Keeper Ofthe Stars was last of five in the Grade 3 Wilshire Stakes at a mile on turf on June 20 at Santa Anita.

“It might have been a little quick back,” Wong said.

Keeper Ofthe Stars was trained by Jerry Hollendorfer until June 2019, when the Hall of Fame trainer was banned from racing at Santa Anita and Golden Gate Fields after four of his horses suffered fatal injuries in workouts or races in late 2018 and early 2019. Shortly thereafter, Tommy Town moved Keeper Ofthe Stars to Wong.

Aside from Keeper Ofthe Stars, Wong’s Del Mar runners are likely to include Dynasty of Her Own, who won the California Oaks on May 31 at Golden Gate Fields before finishing fifth in the Grade 3 Iowa Oaks on Sunday at Prairie Meadows, and Lightinthedarkness an unraced 2-year-old California-bred colt who could start in coming weeks.

Tommy Town Thoroughbreds owns Dynasty of Her Own and Lightinthedarkness.

“We have a couple of nice 2-year-olds up here that will eventually make their way down there,” Wong said.

Earlier this week, Wong downplayed summertime projections for his stable at Del Mar, saying the team may have a slow start to the meeting with increased runners in early August. By the time the season ends on Sept. 7, Wong is hopeful to at least equal last year’s win total.

“We were hoping to win three or four,” he said of 2019. “We didn’t have the best of stock. I would be happy if we did what we did last year.”

Since the 2019 Del Mar summer meeting, Wong’s best meeting in Southern California was the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting, in which he had six wins from 34 runners.

Wong, who grew up attending races at Bay Meadows with his mother, does not come from a racing family. A husband and father of three, Wong worked for trainers Art Sherman and John Martin before starting his own stable in 2014. In 2015, his first full year of training, Wong had 40 wins.

There are indications this will be a record-breaking year.

Despite losing more than six weeks of racing at Golden Gate Fields and seven weeks at Santa Anita this spring because of the coronavirus outbreak, Wong is on pace for his best season. In 2019, he had career-best stable earnings of $3,180,544 with 163 wins from 728 starters. Through Tuesday, his stable had earned $1,769,545 with 86 wins from 319 starters, and that was with the enforced closure of the state’s two leading tracks.

Keeper Ofthe Stars, who has earned $302,500 this year, has been a huge boost to the bottom line. At the Golden Gate Fields winter-spring meeting that ended June 14, Wong led all trainers with 76 wins, 32 more than runner-up Isidro Tamayo.

Most of those horses are based at Golden Gate Fields and may not be competitive on the tougher Southern California circuit.

“I’d love to get more quality horses,” he said. “Tommy Town has been supportive to send me some good horses.

“They bought a bunch of babies at Keeneland last year. I can’t express how much I appreciate the opportunities they’ve given me.

“I like to win from the bottom to the top. To participate in a Grade 1 and be in these stakes is pretty darn cool. It’s an opportunity I’d never been presented.”