Bertrando Never Headed in Classic

When Gary Stevens rode a 4-year-old filly to victory in the first race at Del Mar on Saturday, Ed Nahem suspected that he was going to have a good day.

“She won wire to wire on the inside,” Nahem said. “I didn’t know if that meant my horse was going to beat the mighty Best Pal, but it told me that he was going to run a good race.”

Nahem’s Bertrando, who is also owned by Marshall Naify, went to the front at the start of the $1-million Pacific Classic, and 1 1/4 miles later the 4-year-old colt was not only a three-length winner, but had broken the Del Mar record for the distance with a time of 1:59 2/5.

Best Pal, who had set the record of 1:59 4/5 two years ago when he won the first Classic, was the 2-5 favorite to remain undefeated in five Del Mar starts. But he couldn’t overhaul Bertrando and wound up third, beaten by 3 3/4 lengths.

In between Bertrando and Best Pal was the late-running Missionary Ridge, who usually is on the pace. Bertrando, Missionary Ridge and Marquetry gave Bobby Frankel a 1-2-4 finish as the trainer’s horses accounted for $825,000. That topped even Frankel’s performance last year in the Classic, when Missionary Ridge and Defensive Play ran 1-2 and earned $750,000.

“I guess that makes me smart,” Frankel said Saturday. “But I’ve started horses in a thousand other races like this and they’ve been up the track. I guess this just makes me look smarter than I really am.”

Bertrando’s front-running ability had carried him to five victories, five seconds and two thirds in 13 previous starts, and purses of $1.3 million. But before Saturday, horses breaking from Bertrando’s No. 1 post position had won only five of 150 races this season.

“It was an honest track today,” said Stevens, who drew the assignment on Bertrando after Alex Solis had ridden the colt to a second-place finish behind Best Pal in the Hollywood Gold Cup and a third-place in the Iselin Handicap at Monmouth Park. The race before those, Stevens had been aboard for Bertrando’s second-place in the Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont Park. The Classic ended a five-race losing streak for the Nahem-bred son of Skywalker and Gentle Hands, giving Bertrando his first victory in more than seven months.

Said Frankel of Bertrando’s record: “You take Siberian Summer out of the Strub (at Santa Anita) and he wins that. You take Best Pal out of the Gold Cup and he wins that easy. Best Pal had no excuses today. He had a good post and this is his track. Bertrando is a horse that just rates himself, and when I saw him two lengths in front heading for home on a speed-favoring track, I said, ‘Wow!’ ”

The three Frankel horses were coupled in the betting and Bertrando paid $8.20 as the second choice.

Best Pal broke from the outside in the seven-horse field and was never far back. By the time the horses hit the top of the stretch, jockey Corey Black had Best Pal in second place, off Bertrando’s right flank, with Siberian Summer and Corey Nakatani stalking them.

Stevens then began whipping Bertrando left-handed. “I asked my horse for his life at the top of the stretch, and he responded,” Stevens said. “Corey (Black) asked his horse to run early, and that was the right thing to do. There’s no doubt now that (Bertrando is) a mile-and-a-quarter horse. Look how fast he went.”

Bertrando ran fractions of 22 3/5, 46, 1:09 4/5 and 1:34 1/5.

In Bertrando’s other 1 1/4-mile starts this year, he was second in both the Strub and the Gold Cup and ninth in the Santa Anita Handicap.

Black hadn’t planned on being between horses with Best Pal in the stretch, but he said that was no factor.

“I had to go after Bertrando early,” Black said. “He was going too easily up front. When I came alongside Bertrando at the three-eighths pole, my horse just didn’t have it. I got after him, but it wasn’t there. I wouldn’t change anything I did in the race. If Bertrando had stopped and run last, then I would have said that I screwed up.”

After the race, Gary Jones, Best Pal’s trainer, stood in the tunnel that runs from the paddock to the track, waiting to discuss the Classic with Black.

“I don’t have any excuses,” Jones said. “There was no way we were going to beat Bertrando if we tried to come from way back. I just told Corey to ride my horse the way the race came up. There was nothing else he could do. The other horse was just better today, that’s all.”

Of no consolation to Jones was that Best Pal earned $150,000 for third, pushing his total to $4.5 million as he moved past Unbridled into fifth place on the all-time money list.

At the head of the stretch, jockey Eddie Delahoussaye thought that Missionary Ridge, who was 24-1 a year ago, might win the Classic for the second consecutive time. Missionary Ridge was last, almost 10 lengths behind Bertrando, after three-quarters of a mile.

“We got through, and we had a shot,” Delahoussaye said. “He kicked on at the quarter pole, and I got after him, but then he hung a bit at the sixteenth pole. We changed his running style (from being a front-runner), and he took right to it, so I have to be happy with what happened.”

Horse Racing Notes

With one stop left on the American Championship Racing Series’ nine-race tour, Devil His Due is the leader with 31 points. Valley Crossing, who picked up one point for his fifth-place finish in the Pacific Classic, is next with 25 points, followed by Missionary Ridge (24) and Bertrando (22). . . . The series will end with the Woodward Stakes at Belmont Park on Sept. 18. Trainer Bobby Frankel said that Missionary Ridge is a probable for the Woodward.

Slerp, ridden by Adalberto Lopez, rallied from the outside to win the Pat O’Brien Breeders’ Cup Handicap by a neck.

Thirty Slews, the O’Brien high weight at 121 pounds, flattened out as he tried to make his run and failed to win for the third consecutive time since winning the Breeders’ Cup Sprint.