Del Mar 2024: Sweet Azteca looms large in Rancho Bernardo

Beat her if you can.

Pamela Ziebarth’s homebred filly Sweet Azteca has six rivals to outrun Sunday in the 53rd edition of the Grade 3, $100,000 Rancho Bernardo Handicap for fillies and mares at Del Mar. Or to look at it another way, those six rivals have one special miss that they have to deal with first, last and anything in between.

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The gray daughter of Sharp Azteca is double fast and primed to do some of her best work heading toward a likely start in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint, a seven-furlong dash worth $1 million that will be contested at Del Mar on Nov. 2. It is the likely reason the Michael McCarthy trainee is staying home at Del Mar to run in the Rancho Bernardo rather than taking on bigger game for more money back east.

A race over the track is a phrase that rings sweetly for those in the game. It’s a big edge, especially when you’re going for a million bucks and a possible Eclipse Award.

To put an underline under it and a double asterisk alongside it, the conditioner is importing his go-to jockey from Saratoga, Del Mar’s six-time riding champ Flavien Prat, to take the controls on his 4-year-old. Prat has ridden her twice before and come away a winner both times. The Frenchman with his exploits back east in the past few years has told the world he’s not only very good, he’s one of the best riders in the whole business.

Sweet Azteca has won four of her five lifetime starts, most recently setting a track record at Los Alamitos at the Rancho Bernardo distance of 6 1/2 furlongs. She has won $421,200 in purses with the best yet to come.

She’ll pack top weight of 126 pounds Sunday, conceding 5-10 pounds to her rivals.

Putting a cherry on top of it all, is her numbers in Jeff Siegel’s morning line. He’s hung her at 2-5, which is just about as low as you can go in this game.