Appropriately Enough, Oceanside Favorite Is 'Cool

Fitting nicely with Del Mar’s ‘Cool As Ever’ marketing theme, Papacoolpapacool was made the 5-2 morning line favorite by oddsmaker Russ Hudak for the traditional opening day featured Oceanside Stakes.

 

A Kentucky-bred son of Temple City trained by Phil D’Amato, Papacoolpapacool won the ungraded Pasadena and La Puente Stakes in March and April then finished seventh of 11 in the Penn Mile in May at Penn National.

 

Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens has the mount for the 3-year-old gelding owned by Cellist Racing Group LLC or Nilforus.

 

The Oceanside field from the rail out: Forest Blue (Victor Espinoza, 8-1), Peacenluvpeacenluv (David Flores, 20-1), Tried and True (Martin Pedroza, 12-1), Fueled by Bourbon (Tyler Baze, 20-1), Royal Albert Hall (Flavien Prat, 10-1), Ride Hard Kowboy (Fernando Perez, 30-1), Thanksgiving Day (Martin Garcia, 10-1), Ground Rules (Kent Desormeaux, 12-1), Anytime Anyplace (Drayden Van Dyke, 6-1), Papacoolpapacool (Gary Stevens, 5-2), Soul Driver (Mike Smith, 3-1) and Extant (Joe Talamo, 20-1).