Del Mar: Unrivaled Time and Hope Road win Sunday stakes

Hope Road successfully defended her title in the Grade 3, $100,000 Bayakoa Stakes.

With Simply Joking and Flavien Prat setting the early pace, last year's winner Hope Road (2-5) and Juan Hernandez tracked in second about a length off the leader. Turning for home, Hope Road switched leads and pulled away under a hand ride from Hernandez to win by 6 1/2 lengths.

"She is really good out of the gate. She broke running, when I asked her to go, she listened. She relaxed very good. Bob (Baffert) was working on her to relax. He did a really good job, and you know, all the credit goes to the filly, because she relaxed and was tracking the horse in front of me just waiting for me to shake the reins. We had a great trip," Hernandez said.

Simply Joking (4-1) had opened a three-length lead on the field of eight with Hope Road up the backstretch, but could not stay with the winner passing the eighth pole and finished second by 2 3/4 lengths over Mahina (28-1). Ridden by Umberto Rispoli, Mahina held her position second to last before angling out turning for home and held off a late charge from Jane Austin to finish third by a nose.

Trained by Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, Hope Road came into the Bayakoa off a third-place finish in the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint on Nov. 1 at Del Mar. A homebred for Cicero Farms, the 4-year-old Quality Road filly improved her record to 14: 6-4-2 and pushed her earnings to $1,016,620 with the winner's share of $60,000.

Hope Road returned $2.80, $2.10 and $2.10. Simply Joking, trained by Michael McCarthy, paid $3.20 and $2.80. Mahina, trained by Paddy Gallagher, returned $5.00 to show.

Fractions for the race were 23.15, 47.32, 1:11.46 and 1:23.61 for a final time of 1:36.38.

Unrivaled Time takes Cecil B. DeMille

Unrivaled Time split horses in late stretch to run down favored Hey Nay Nay and capture the Grade 3, $100,000 Cecil B. DeMille Stakes for 2-year-olds going a mile on the turf at Del Mar.

Proton and Juan Hernandez carved out the early fractions with Track Tiger pressing to their outside in second. Unrivaled Time, the 5-1 third choice, traveled in third about a half-length off the lead through the first three-quarters of the mile. Track Tiger briefly took command from Proton leaving the three-eighths pole but faded in the stretch.

Hey Nay Nay, the 1-2 favorite ridden by Flavien Prat, sat in fifth throughout before launching a three-wide bid on the turn. Unrivaled Time and Diego Herrera split horses passing the sixteenth pole and made brief contact with Hey Nay Nay in the final furlong before pulling away to win by 3/4 of a length.

Irisearch, the 10-1 shot who trailed throughout, made a four-wide bid at the turn for home and stormed down the stretch to nail Hey Nay Nay for second by a neck. Proton, the second choice, finished another 3/4 of a length back in third.

"Hey Nay Nay was coming in, you know, he bumped me a little bit coming into the stretch and I was trying to keep my horse as straight as possible," Herrera said. "The sky is the limit for him. He wants to get out there and run. You know, today he showed a lot of maturing. We had a couple of horses moving from inside to outside."

The victory gave Herrera his first graded stakes win at Del Mar.

Trained by Leonard Powell, Unrivaled Time broke his maiden against California-breds on Oct. 19 at Santa Anita with a run from off the pace.

"I was very happy with our position early on and very happy with how the race unfolded," Powell said. "He let a couple of speed horses go for it and settled then came with one run like he did when he broke his maiden. He broke his maiden against Cal-breds and the question mark was he good enough to step up and the answer is 'yes.'"

Owned by Innergy Racing and in part by breeder Alfred Pais, the son of Not This Time improved his record to 3: 2-0-0 with $97,600 in earnings.

Unrivaled Time returned $13.00, $6.20 and $3.00. Irisearch (Phil D'Amato) paid $7.40 and $3.80. Hey Nay Nay (John Sadler) paid $2.10.

Fractions went 22.97 and 47.52 seconds, 1:12.16 and 1:24.43, with a final time of 1:36.42.