Lloyd Starts Two on Del Mar Turf

Trainer Jamie Lloyd hoped the opening-day Oceanside Stakes would split into divisions so he could keep his charges, Memen and Moment Of Weakness separate. The race didn’t split, so Lloyd will have Moment Of Weakness to saddle for the Oceanside and Memen for Friday’s seventh race, an allowance claimer at 1 1/16 miles on the turf, a sixteenth longer than the Oceanside.

“It (not splitting) made a mess for everybody, but I guess they didn’t get enough horses to do it,” Lloyd said. Lloyd, 30, grew up in England and moved to California in 2001, where he worked under trainers Jim Cassidy and Paddy Gallagher before going out on his own in 2006. His stakes winners include Hamieldaeme, Shermeen, and On The Acorn. He’s also had a successful career as a bloodstock agent, helping with the acquisitions of Monzante, Battle of Hastings, and St. Trinians.

Moment of Weakness, an Irish-bred gelding, came off a nearly six-month layoff to finish fourth after setting the pace through three-quarters of the Tsunami Slew Stakes on June 11 at Hollywood Park.

“Coming off the layoff he was too fresh on the lead,” Lloyd said. “We’re looking at it as if he needed a race.”

Memen, an Irish-bred colt by Verglas is winless in three U.S. starts, two of them stakes assignments, this year. Memen has not raced since a last-place finish of 12 in the Grade II American Turf on the Kentucky Oaks undercard on May 6 at Churchill Downs. In April, Memen was sixth, beaten less than three lengths in the Transylvania Stakes at Keeneland.

A bout of illness between the Transylvania and American Turf, which Lloyd believes was at least in part brought on by changes in the weather in Kentucky, contributed to the lackluster last race and prompted the time off since.