Allowance Matches ‘Salty’ Group Of Stakes Caliber Rivals

Silent Poet winning the Highlander at Woodbine. (Michael Burns)

Stable Notes By Jim Charvat

DEL MAR, Calif.—The five-furlongs turf race following the Real Good Deal Stakes Friday at Del Mar is officially listed as a third-level allowance but judging by the field, it could easily pass as another stakes race on the eight-race Friday evening card. 

Combined, the eight-horse field has won 39 races, five of them have won stakes races and one is a good placing away from becoming a millionaire. That would be Canadian invader Silent Poet who comes in from Woodbine.

“He was sent for ‘Ship and Win’,” trainer John Sadler says. “He’s been a steady sprinter at Woodbine. I got him about four or five weeks ago and I’ve worked him three times. He’s training good.”

War at Sea, winner of the 2022 Cinema at Santa Anita, is returning to the races after being off 11 months nursing an injury. Trainer Ron Ellis is using this race as a prep for a graded stake later in the meet.

“He had some bone bruising,” Ellis says. “We didn’t have to do surgery or anything. We got a little delayed with his training because of all the rain this year. It set me back a little bit. Just getting a race back into him. I’m trying to get him ready for the Del Mar Mile.”

The meet’s leading trainer, Philip D’Amato, sends out a pair of horses in the turf sprint. Turn On The Jets won the $100,000 Stormy Liberal during Del Mar’s fall meet last December. He returned from a seven-month freshening and finished fourth in an allowance, beaten by just a length at Santa Anita in June.

Stablemate Beer Can Man is making his first start following a trip back east. He won the $100,000 Turf Sprint at Pimlico on the Preakness Stakes undercard. He’s 3-for-3 on Del Mar’s Jimmy Durante Turf Course, including a victory as a 2-year-old in the 2020 G3 Cecil B. DeMille.

There’s also Whatmakessammyrun, winner of the G2 Eddie D last October and the $100,000 Siren Lure in April, both down the hillside course at Santa Anita. He also ran a close second, beaten a neck by Fast Buck in the G3 Daytona before running fifth in the allowance with Turn On the Jets, a race won by Noble Reflection, who is also in this race.

Sumter hasn’t won since taking down the $100,000 Singletary at Santa Anita in April of last year. He’s returning from a five-month layoff for trainer Richard Mandella, who isn’t buying into the notion that his son of War Front is dropping out of stakes company.

“The race is pretty tough,” he says. “Just like a stake.”

Here’s the field with the jockeys and the morning line odds: 

1. Whatmakessammyrun (Joe Bravo, 6-1)

2. Beer Can Man (Ramon Vasquez, 5/2)

3. Silent Poet (Antonio Fresu, 12-1)

4. Turn On The Jets (Hector Berrios, 3-1)

5. Radical Right (Juan Hernandez, 10-1)

6. Sumter (Mike Smith, 10-1)

7. War At Sea (Victor Espinoza, 6-1) 

8. Noble Reflection (Umberto Rispoli, 3-1)