Top eastern outfits set sights on Del Mar turf festival

The close of entries and post position draw for Del Mar’s Thanksgiving day card that includes the Grade 3, $100,000 Red Carpet Stakes is set for Saturday afternoon. On Sunday, similar procedures will be conducted for the Friday program with the $250,000 Hollywood Turf Cup (G2).

So begins the staging process for the four-day, seven-stakes turf festival that will wrap up the Bing Crosby season at the track. And if the seven previous such closing stands of the fall meeting are any indication, the eager anticipation felt by horsemen and fans is more than justified.

A contingent of quality shippers from the east will arrive Monday or Tuesday in numbers that racing secretary David Jerkens expects will be similar to past years from the stables of trainers whose names top, or are highly stationed, on national lists.

Chad Brown has won nine turf festival races, with emphasis on the Grade 1 events – Saturday’s $400,000 Hollywood Derby and Sunday’s $400,000 Matriarch – where he’s notched three in each. He’s expected to put seven or eight on the westbound plane, among them defending Matriarch champ Viadera. Brown has multiple graded stakes winner Public Sector and Sifting Sands nominated for the Hollywood Derby and Turf Cup nominee Rockemperor stabled at Santa Anita and available for the relatively short trip down the freeway.

Michael Stidham’s Princess Grace, who shipped in to win the Yellow Ribbon in the summer and returned for a third-place finish as favorite in the Goldikova (G2) during Breeders’ Cup Week, has remained on the grounds and is nominated for the Matriarch. So has Goldikova runner-up Zofelle for trainer Brendan Walsh.

Trainer H. Graham Motion, who has notched Red Carpet, Jimmy Durante and Seabiscuit Stakes wins in past Turf Festivals, has a handful of horses on site and could bring in reinforcements considering his six stakes nominees. Ken McPeek has indicated he will be sending Camp Hope, a winner of two starts in October at Keeneland, and Greg Sacco is sending It Can Be Done off a third place finish, beaten two lengths by Public Sector in the Hill Prince on Oct. 23 at Belmont Park.