DEL MAR : Thirty Slews Loses in Crosby

The Wicked North, taking advantage of a moderate pace, held off favored Thirty Slews to win the $100,000-added Bing Crosby Handicap by a head Sunday.

Ridden by Corey Black, The Wicked North deprived Eddie Delahoussaye, Thirty Slews’ rider, of a stakes sweep. Delahoussaye had ridden Hollywood Wildcat to victory in the San Clemente Handicap for 3-year-old fillies. Hollywood Wildcat was timed in 1:34 4/5 for the one-mile turf race, tying the stakes record set by Flawlessly in 1991.

“If the big horse (Thirty Slews) runs his race,” Delahoussaye said, “we’ll be OK.”

Thirty Slews was the defending Bing Crosby champion and winner of the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. He went off at even money and seemed positioned on the far turn for the stretch run.

“I could hear Eddie back there,” Black said, “but we were getting away with soft fractions and I knew my horse had something left. I thought we’d go out and lay third, but Gary (Stevens) didn’t gun Star Of The Crop. It set up differently than I had expected. We were really just galloping.”

When Delahoussaye and Thirty Slews started to move, Black and The Wicked North were ready.

“I really wanted to get a quick length on Eddie,” Black said, “so I gigged my horse around the quarter-pole. I really wanted to get away from Eddie.”

That jump became vital to the outcome once Thirty Slews got free and made his run down the middle of the track. He barely fell short as The Wicked North escaped with a $17.60 payoff, running 1:08 2/5 for the six furlongs.

“You could see that horse had talent from his works (including five furlongs in 57 3/5),” Bob Baffert, Thirty Slews’ trainer, said of the winner. “That was the horse I was worried about all along.”

Delahoussaye had set himself up for a sweep with the come-from-behind victory aboard Hollywood Wildcat. Mighty Icy, Incindress and Madame L’Enjoleur set the pace through the far turn, but Delahoussaye took Hollywood Wildcat seven-wide around the field and won by 4 1/2 lengths.

Miami Sands, running her first U.S. race, moved up under Gary Stevens to finish second, and Beal Street Blues also went wide into the stretch under Black for third.

“I could have gone inside,” Delahoussaye said, “but I would have had to take up, and I didn’t want to break her momentum. I thought she was good enough to go wide and make up the ground.”

“They set a good pace up front,” winning trainer Neil Drysdale said. “Forty-six seconds (for the half mile) was one of the faster paces of the meet.”

Hollywood Wildcat came into the race off a victory in the Grade I Hollywood Oaks over 1 1/8 miles on the dirt July 11. This was her first race on turf and also represented a one-eighth mile drop in distance from her last start.

“She’ll run over any surface,” Delahoussaye said.

“Very impressive,” Drysdale said.

Hollywood Wildcat was so impressive she might be hard-pressed for opposition in her next scheduled start, the 1 1/8-mile Del Mar Oaks over the turf course Aug. 22.