DEL MAR : Stevens Rides Beal Street Blues to Victory in California Debut

The same group who raced Hansel, the nation’s best 3-year-old colt last year, brought a 2-year-old filly to California and she validated her Chicago record by winning the $250,000 Del Mar Debutante Saturday.

Beal Street Blues, owned and bred by Joe Albritton and trained by Frank Brothers, rallied from the center of the track, took the lead with a sixteenth of a mile to go and prevailed by two lengths in the one-mile Debutante, with Fit N Fappy second by a neck over even-money favorite Zoonaqua.

Brothers also trained Hansel for Albritton and the colt won the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes last year before suffering a career-ending injury while running second in the Travers.

Beal Street Blues, a daughter of Dixieland Band and Windmill Gal, broke her maiden at Arlington International on June 24 and then immediately moved into stakes competition there on Aug. 4, winning the Miss Oceana by 14 lengths.

Beal Street Blues earned $137,500 and paid $11.20 after winning in 1:37, a time that has been bettered by Debutante winners in six of the seven previous years.

Gary Stevens rode Beal Street Blues for the first time and picked up his third winner of the day. “She’s a long-striding thing and she really kicked it in today,” Stevens said. “When I got her outside, she started to move, then we straightened out for home and she just went on about her business. She has a beautiful stride.”

Fit N Fappy, who broke her maiden on Aug. 10 in her first start, was trapped with three-eighths of a mile to run and wound up on the rail, inside of Zoonaqua, at the finish.

“I had a lot of filly under me and I never got to use her,” said Fit N Fappy’s jockey, David Flores. “I was all right (on the rail) until the three-eighths pole, then they all started backing up in front of me. I was in tight with nowhere to go. When I finally got clear, the other filly (Beal Street Blues) was clear and gone.”

Eddie Delahoussaye, riding Zoonaqua, was confident at the head of the stretch. “But then she pinned her ears and started sulking,” Delahoussaye said. “She just wouldn’t put out anymore.”

With her archrival, Flawlessly, back at Del Mar because of a fever that interrupted training, Kostroma came from 10th place to score a 1 1/2-length victory Saturday in the $500,000 Beverly D Stakes at Arlington International.

Ridden by Kent Desormeaux, the leading jockey in the nation with more than $6 million in purses, Kostroma rallied on the outside for her sixth victory in 10 tries in the United States. Three of the four losses came in races won by Flawlessly, the most recent in the Ramona Handicap at Del Mar on Aug. 15.

Kostroma, trained by Gary Jones, ran 1 3/16 miles on grass in 1:54, earning $300,000 and paying $7 to win as the second betting choice, behind the entry of Dance Smartly and Radiant Ring. Dance Smartly, last year’s champion turf mare who has been unable to regain her form because of foot and leg injuries, ran second behind Ruby Tiger most of the way. Ruby Tiger finished second, a neck better than Dance Smartly, followed by Marble Maiden, Polemic, Super Staff, Julie La Rousse, Elegance, Crystal Path, Caerlina, Olden Rijn, Alcando and Radiant Ring.

Of Kostroma’s fourth-place finish in the the Ramona, Desormeaux said: “We tried to out-think my mare, and through our own fault, we got her beat. Every time we were victimized (by Flawlessly), there was something wrong. So coming into today, all we needed to do was have some decent pace and something to shoot at, and it worked perfect.”

Ruby Tiger ran slow fractions--48 4/5 for the half-mile and 1:12 2/5 for six furlongs--that didn’t help Dance Smartly.

“I was wrestling her, trying to drag her back, which is just completely ludicrous,” said Pat Day, Dance Smartly’s jockey. “I probably should have gone ahead and let her run. She couldn’t have finished any worse.”

Horse Racing Notes

Exchange is the 5-2 favorite in today’s Chula Vista Handicap at Del Mar. Vieille Vigne, 5-1 today, lost eight in a row after winning last year’s Chula Vista, then won the Bayakoa Handicap here on Aug. 21. . . . Trainer Bob Baffert ran 1-2 in Saturday’s California Equine Retirement Foundation Stakes at Del Mar, with Thirty Slews edging Gundaghia by a half-length. . . . Corby’s maiden victory in Saturday’s sixth race wasn’t easy. The 2-year-old Dahar colt unseated Pat Valenzuela before the race, then had to survive a foul claim by Eddie Delahoussaye, who lost a photo finish aboard Goldigger’s Dream.