Formidable Man, Stay Hot meet again Sunday in Del Mar Derby

Two of the top 3-year-olds on the grounds outside the Bob Baffert barn will hook up Sunday in the 80th running of the Grade 2, $300,000 Del Mar Derby.

Formidable Man (8-5) and Stay Hot (5-2), the top two choices on the morning line this weekend, met once at Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby day. Stay Hot did not have a very good time.

Click here for Del Mar entries and results.

“He didn’t enjoy the trip to Kentucky much,” trainer Peter Eurton said, referring to a last-place finish in the American Turf (G2). “He got hot and sweaty, and I schooled him, too. Too much anxiety, and I don’t know why. Maybe just too many races at a time, but he enjoyed his two months off.”

Eurton was rewarded with a victory off the layoff in the $100,000 La Jolla Handicap at Del Mar on Aug. 4.

“We were very pleased with his last race. How could you not be?” Eurton said. “He closed into an average pace and didn’t win by a nose like he normally does.”

In his three races before the trip to Kentucky, all wins, all in stakes, Stay Hot won by a neck, a head and a head. Eurton and Stay Hot may be in for another close one in the Del Mar Derby. To his outside are Oceanside Stakes winner Formidable Man and Real Good Deal Stakes victor Curlin’s Kaos.

Formidable Man ran second, well ahead of Stay Hot, in the American Turf and then finished sixth in the $275,000 Audubon Stakes, also at Churchill Downs. Then he returned to Southern California and ran down a talented field in the Oceanside.

“We saw a new dimension in him in the Oceanside,” trainer Mike McCarthy said. “He got kind of bunched up early at the start and found himself shuffled back a little farther than we would have liked. Obviously he finished with a big run.”

Formidable Man has shown he can lay close as he did in all of his races before the Oceanside. 

“I’ll leave it up to Umberto,” McCarthy said about where he wants Formidable Man placed in the race. “I would imagine he would be a little bit closer than he was the other day. He seems to have held his form for the summer, and we’re expecting the same kind of performance all over again.”

Curlin’s Kaos was up on the pace and never stopped in the $150,000 Real Good Deal, sailing to a 5 3/4-length victory and giving trainer Antonio García his first stakes win at Del Mar.

“He really impressed us,” García said. “The horse has always had talent. Putting the blinkers back on definitely gave him a boost of confidence and focus, and he showed it that day.”

The Real Good Deal was seven furlongs on the dirt. The Del Mar Derby is 1 1/8 miles on the grass.

“He’s been very versatile on both surfaces,” García said. “He’s done really good on the turf. I think the way the track is playing, he can get the same type of race where he can just break and get going. I think he’s going to be tough to catch.”

Guy Named Joe ran second in the Oceanside, coming from the back of the pack with Formidable Man.

“You know he tries hard every time,” trainer Doug O’Neill said. “In these top turf races so much of it you rely on a good, ground-saving trip. They’re so evenly matched. We have J.J. (Hernández) on him, and we’re optimistic we can spring a little upset here.”

O’Neill said distance was not a concern, insisting the son of American Pharoah will “run all day.”

The Del Mar Derby is the eighth of Sunday’s 10 races. It is scheduled to start at 8:02 p.m. EDT. The first post is at 4:30 p.m.