Ransom the Moon again upsets Roy H in in the Bing Crosby Stakes

Eventual champion sprinter Roy H lost just one race last year, the Grade 1, $300,000 Bing Crosby Stakes at Del Mar. Then history repeated itself Saturday.

Ransom the Moon came running down the center of the track and from off the pace to repeat in the featured race at six furlongs.

In the process, jockey Flavien Prat scored his fourth straight Bing Crosby victory aboard Ransom the Moon, a 6-year-old son of Malibu Moon. The Phil D'Amato trainee went the distance in 1:10.08, passing Roy H in the final strides.

Touching Rainbows ran third in a photo in the field of 11.

“I was thinking I was riding this horse up too close," Prat said. "I might have been taking his kick away from him. So today I went a different way. We had a big field and I knew there would be some pace, so I sat back with him. Then he came running. I had a lot of horse.”

Ransom the Moon broke slow but moved to the rail for a ground-saving trip until swung widest of them all off the turn. Fast fractions set by St. Joe Bay set up his rally from the back, which marked the horse's first win in six starts -- since the 2017 Bing Crosby.

“He’s been off a while, so he might have needed this one," said Kent Desormeaux, Roy H's jockey. "The boss (trainer Peter Miller) will go over him real well and get it figured out.”

Roy H was making his first start in nearly four months, since running a hard-luck third in the Dubai Golden Shaheen (G1) at Meydan. Miller timed the freshening to get his horse back to the Breeders' Cup.

Campaigned by Agave Racing Stable and Jeffry Wilke, Ransom the Moon struck at 9/2 and earned a "Win and You're In" spot to the Nov. 3 Sprint at Churchill Downs.