Borrego Comes From 9th to Win

Outsiders must have thought the owners of Borrego were daft when they turned down a $4-million offer for the horse some time ago.

But Borrego’s enduring, long-suffering ownership group -- 14 strong and headed by Jon and Sarah Kelly of Rancho Santa Fe -- was rewarded Sunday when the colt without any credentials finally broke into the ranks of stakes winners with a half-length win in the $1-million Pacific Classic at Del Mar.

It was Borrego’s 18th start and 14th stakes appearance. He’d won three times, but never in stakes company. He’d earned $852,090, with eight in-the-money stakes finishes, but in last year’s Triple Crown races -- the Kentucky Derby and Preakness -- he was beaten by a combined 31-plus lengths.

“It might have been asking too much of him to run in the Derby and the Preakness,” Sarah Kelly said before the 1 1/4 -mile Pacific Classic. “He was a late May foal and didn’t actually turn 3 until after those races had been run.”

In the Classic, Borrego was in ninth place, 10 lengths from the front, after a half-mile, but the front-runners -- favored Lava Man, Surf Cat and Super Frolic -- were grinding one another into submission.

Lava Man, the Hollywood Gold Cup winner, salvaged third, a neck behind Perfect Drift, but he was vanned off the track with a leg injury and his future is in doubt. Super Frolic finished fifth and Surf Cat, the only 3-year-old in the race, came in sixth. Musique Toujours, who finished last, also was vanned off with an undetermined injury.

Borrego, clocked in 2:00 3/5 , paid $24.40 and earned $600,000. His jockey, Garrett Gomez, became the first rider to win the Classic three times. Skimming, in 2000-01, gave Gomez his other wins in Del Mar’s richest race.

“I had a lot of confidence in this horse from the get-go, from the first time I rode him, in the Santa Anita Handicap [in March],” Gomez said. “It was only a matter of time before he broke through, and this was his day. I knew he had it, [trainer Beau Greely] knew he had it, and today he showed it.”

Choctaw Nation, who finished fourth, about a length from the winner, closed from the outside under Victor Espinoza.

“That horse,” Gomez said, “helped me all the way to the wire. Being there, the other horse helped my horse kick on.”

Surf Cat, running against older horses for the first time, was on the muscle under Alex Solis and kept the early pressure on Lava Man and Pat Valenzuela.

“There’s no doubt about it, [Surf Cat] cost me the race,” Valenzuela said. “I’m trying the best I can to slow it down, and he’s on me. My horse ran great, but he just fell apart in the last 20 yards.”

Solis said that there was nothing he could do, and Bruce Headley, Surf Cat’s trainer, agreed. This was only Surf Cat’s seventh race and his first time at a distance of more than 1 1/8 miles.

“He was too fresh,” Solis said. “He was so rank the first part of it. I was fighting him. It was just a case of him lacking experience.”

Gomez, whose career has been interrupted by drug and alcohol abuse, said that he has been sober for almost two years. He finished third with Borrego in the Santa Anita Handicap and has ridden the colt in the four races since then.

“He showed a lot of courage and guts to go through rehab,” Jon Kelly said. “We’re proud to have Garrett with us.”

The Pacific Classic attracted the oft-beaten Perfect Drift, who also was second in the stake last year, but other top horses outside California stayed home. Combined, Borrego and Perfect Drift had won two of their last 27 starts before Sunday. Perfect Drift’s $200,000 share boosted his career purses to $3.6 million.

“We go anywhere, and he runs big every time,” said Murray Johnson, who trains Perfect Drift. “He just keeps coming back for more, and he’ll win one of these one of these days.”

The Kellys, who own 45% of Borrego, said that Greely will make the decision, but Borrego probably is headed for the $4-million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Belmont Park on Oct. 29. There might be a prep race before that.

“Who knows,” Jon Kelly said, “maybe it was just our turn to win one.”