San Diego Handicap : Super Diamond Wins at Del Mar

Super Diamond loves to go home.

The 5-year-old bay gelding, owned by Roland Sahm of Rancho Santa Fe, continued his mastery of the Del Mar course with a three-quarter length victory in Sunday’s $75,000-added San Diego Handicap.

A Del Mar record crowd of 28,539, which broke the mark of 28,394 on July 31, 1984, saw Super Diamond (a 3-1 choice) hold off favorite M. Double M to win his third race in two years at Del Mar.

Super Diamond won two allowance races and finished third in the Del Mar Handicap at the 1984 Del Mar meet.

“He sure seems to like this track,” trainer Edwin Gregson said. “It could be my imagination, but he seems to perk right up when we come down here.”

Because Super Diamond has a tendency to wait on horses when he takes the lead, jockey Rafael Meza did not want to bring him to the front too quickly.

“You have to time it right,” he said. “I was worried I would take the lead too soon. He broke real good and I just let him go on his own. He was running so smooth.”

Champion Pilot and Ayman provided the early speed in the race. Super Diamond took the lead as the horses turned for home in the 1 1/16 mile feature race.

From that point on, Super Diamond ($8.20, $3.60, $3) held off M. Double M to win with a time of 1:41 2/5.

“I hit him a couple of times left-handed in the stretch,” Meza said. “But he pretty much did it on his own.”

Laffit Pincay Jr., who rode Super Diamond in those two allowance wins at Del Mar last summer, said he had no excuses for his second-place finish aboard M. Double M, the 6-5 favorite.

“That horse (Super Diamond) kind of drew away from me at the end when I thought I was going to beat him,” he said.

M. Double M had won three straight races, including the Pretense Handicap on July 5 at Hollywood Park in his last start.