Hollendorfer Enters Pair in El Cajon

Hall of Fame trainer Jerry Hollendorfer, ahead in the standings and with a stakes win already this week, will pose a double threat when he saddles Iron Fist and Desert Dynamo in Saturday’s $100,000 El Cajon Stakes at one mile on the main track for 3-year-olds.

 

Iron Fist is four weeks removed from a fourth-place finish in the West Virginia Derby at Mountaineer Park and will have regular rider Mike Smith again in the irons.

“He’s training very well here,” Hollendorfer assistant Dan Ward said Friday morning. “He ran a good race in West Virginia, just got stuck down on a bad part of the track.” The son of Tapit , owned by Regis Racing and Stonestreet Stables LLC, has two wins and three other in-the-money finishes from seven starts with earnings of $172,600.

 

Iron Fist started his career here a year ago making three starts without a win but getting a Grade I stakes placement when third American Pharoah in the Del Mar Futurity.

 

Desert Dynamo has made his last three starts at the one mile distance of the El Cajon. The Kentucky-bred son of Desert Party set the pace in an optional claimer here on July 31 before fading to fifth in a field of nine.

 

“He’s doing well,” Ward said. “His last, there was a lot of speed in the race that we thought he could sit behind, but he just kind of took off.

 

“We took the blinkers off and we hope he’ll get a little more patient trip.”

 

The El Cajon field from the rail: Fame and Power (Rafael Bejarano, 5-1), Iron Fist (Mike Smith, 3-1), Desert Dynamo (Flavien Prat, 8-1), Verraco (James Graham, 15-1), Thanksgiving Day (Santiago Gonzalez, 20-1), Gimme Da Lute (Martin Garcia, 4-5) and Rocco’s Wheel (Joe Talamo, 10-1).

 

The El Cajon will go as the third on a 10-race program with an approximate post time of 3:09 p.m.