Blog

Jul 01, 2023

Best Bet: Kirstenbosch can rally in Rancho Bernardo

Sunday’s ninth race at Del Mar is the Grade 3 Rancho Bernardo Handicap for fillies and mares dashing 6 1/2 furlongs on the main track. The scheduled post time is 9:07 p.m. EDT. Click here for Del Mar

Sunday’s ninth race at Del Mar is the Grade 3 Rancho Bernardo Handicap for fillies and mares dashing 6 1/2 furlongs on the main track. The scheduled post time is 9:07 p.m. EDT.

Click here for Del Mar entries and results.

No. 1 Kirstenbosch (4-1) is a Grade 3 route winner adding blinkers and turning back in distance. She is a competent, late-running sprinter. She rallied for the show in the La Brea (G1) at 31-1 odds last year, and she rallied from last and was third by a length in the Monrovia at 6 1/2 furlongs on dirt on April 8. She can get involved from off the pace under Hector Berrios if the pace is honest.

No 8 Eda (8-5) is not flashy or particularly fast on the speed-figure scale, but she just goes out there and wins races. She is 7-for-9 overall and has not lost a race since September 2021. Juan Hernandez is 4-for-4 with her, and she should be all over the pace from the comfortable outside post.

No. 3 Lady T (4-1) stalked and scored by a neck in a decent prep for this in a local optional-claiming sprint under her new rider Mike Smith on July 27. That was her first start since February, and she came right back with a local bullet on Aug. 23. She is slowly getting faster for John Shirreffs.

No. 2 Home Cooking (6-1) is Eda’s younger stablemate, and she likes this oval. She romped in a local maiden sprint second time out last summer and missed by a head in the Del Mar Debutante (G1). She needed her Santa Anita return on June 16 and got back on the beam in a relatively fast local optional-claiming victory on July 28. This is hardly the toughest graded affair, and the sophomore filly is not without a chance. She sports three local moves since her last and Joe Bravo should have in the hunt from the outset.

Get Jarrod’s Del Mar analysis.

Wagers

No. 1 to win

Exacta box 1-8

Trifecta 1-8/1-2-3-8/1-2-3-8

Trifecta 8/all/1

Recent Best Bet winners

Aug. 4 – Bus Buzz ($5.80), trifecta ($82.80)Aug. 5 – Carmelita's Man ($13.60), trifecta ($199.20)Aug. 6 – Maltese Falcon/Panic Alarm/Agency trifecta ($173.40)Aug. 17 – Rose Barton/Pegs A. K. Girl quinella ($14.80)Last Sunday – Patches O’Houlihan ($6.30)Friday – Eddie’s New Dream/Rose Maddox/Chancery Way trifecta ($149.80)Saturday - Echo Zulu ($3.20), exacta ($6)