Best Bet: Kirstenbosch can rally in Rancho Bernardo
Sunday’s ninth race at Del Mar is the Grade 3 Rancho Bernardo Handicap for fillies and mares dashing 6 1/2 furlongs on the main track. The scheduled post time is 9:07 p.m. EDT.
Click here for Del Mar entries and results.
No. 1 Kirstenbosch (4-1) is a Grade 3 route winner adding blinkers and turning back in distance. She is a competent, late-running sprinter. She rallied for the show in the La Brea (G1) at 31-1 odds last year, and she rallied from last and was third by a length in the Monrovia at 6 1/2 furlongs on dirt on April 8. She can get involved from off the pace under Hector Berrios if the pace is honest.
No 8 Eda (8-5) is not flashy or particularly fast on the speed-figure scale, but she just goes out there and wins races. She is 7-for-9 overall and has not lost a race since September 2021. Juan Hernandez is 4-for-4 with her, and she should be all over the pace from the comfortable outside post.
No. 3 Lady T (4-1) stalked and scored by a neck in a decent prep for this in a local optional-claiming sprint under her new rider Mike Smith on July 27. That was her first start since February, and she came right back with a local bullet on Aug. 23. She is slowly getting faster for John Shirreffs.
No. 2 Home Cooking (6-1) is Eda’s younger stablemate, and she likes this oval. She romped in a local maiden sprint second time out last summer and missed by a head in the Del Mar Debutante (G1). She needed her Santa Anita return on June 16 and got back on the beam in a relatively fast local optional-claiming victory on July 28. This is hardly the toughest graded affair, and the sophomore filly is not without a chance. She sports three local moves since her last and Joe Bravo should have in the hunt from the outset.
Get Jarrod’s Del Mar analysis.
Wagers
No. 1 to win
Exacta box 1-8
Trifecta 1-8/1-2-3-8/1-2-3-8
Trifecta 8/all/1
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