Ransom the Moon avoids havoc to win Bing Crosby Stakes at Del Mar

DEL MAR >> Mike Smith has been around the sport of horse racing long enough to know anything can happen in a race. Horses can be freakish animals and cause problems at any turn.

One of those instances occurred Saturday at Del Mar, with defending Breeders’ Cup Sprint champion Drefong throwing the $301,380 Grade I Bing Crosby Stakes into disarray while making his first start in eight months.

Shortly after the start of the six-furlong race, Drefong, breaking from the No. 2 post as the 9-5 second choice, was brushed by St. Joe Bay, causing the 4-year-old son of Gio Ponti to duck left toward the gap. At this point, Smith came off Drefong and the rider-less colt proceeded to cause all sorts of havoc the rest of the way.

“It kind of just totally changed the dynamics of the race,” said trainer Philip D’Amato, whose Ransom the Moon, with the aid of jockey Flavien Prat, avoided most of the trouble and posted a 1 1/2-length victory at 4-1 with a 1:09.63 final clocking.

“Flavien kind of had to sit behind Drefong to see what he was going to do, and luckily we were in the right spot there at the top of the lane,” said D’Amato, who watched as Prat shot through along the fence while 8-5 favorite Roy H and 14-1 longshot Moe Candy were carried six and seven wide, respectively, into the stretch.

Roy H finished second, 1 1/2 lengths in front of Moe Candy.

D’Amato watched the race from just outside the winner’s circle along the rail and might have yelled himself hoarse rooting his colt home down the stretch. He seemed a bit perturbed when 91-1 longshot Magic Taste broke through the gate and caused a brief delay, but it turned out to be only a minor inconvenience.

D’Amato was most concerned with how the loose horse would affect the race.

“You don’t know if he’s going to go inside or outside,” D’Amato said of Drefong. “I think in the grand totality of everything, he compromised everybody’s chances. He slowed down the pace of the race, he drifted out on Roy H, he backed us up. But you know, these things happen in horse racing.”

Smith was taken to first aid, where he checked out fine.

“It’s just too bad it happened,” the Hall of Famer said. “If I don’t get brushed, I think I go right through there and I’m going to be fine. But they tell me the horse is OK, and I’m OK. It’s just one of those things.”

Paco Lopez, who rode Roy H, had no doubt his chances were compromised.

“My horse was running really well and then (Drefong) changed everything,” he said. “I was trying to work around him, but we just kept getting pushed out. I don’t know if I would have won if it hadn’t happened, but I think I surely could have. Horse racing. What can you do?”

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D’Amato ran a 3-year-old filly, Table for Three, who did the same thing as Drefong five races earlier in a $32,000 claiming race.

Ransom the Moon, who raced primarily on the turf and synthetics earlier in his career at Woodbine in Toronto before being sold to the Agave Racing Stable of Mark Martinez and Jeffry Wilke, has flourished since being switched to dirt by D’Amato in April.

He won a $62,500 optional claimer by 4 1/4 lengths over the main track in his debut for D’Amato at Santa Anita, came back to win the Grade II Kona Gold Stakes by 2 1/4 lengths three weeks later and then lost by a neck to Danzing Candy in the Grade II San Carlos on July 1.

Ransom the Moon has now won three of five on dirt with one second-place finish after winning one of 10 on the turf and one of four on synthetics for his previous owners.

“From day one when I set my eyes on him, he looked like a good horse,” D’Amato said. “He’s a very well-bred horse, and since trying him on the dirt he’s just been a totally different animal.”

The victory was Prat’s third consecutive in the Bing Crosby, following wins in 2015 with Wild Dude and 2016 with Lord Nelson.

D’Amato said he’ll probably give Ransom the Moon a prep at Santa Anita in the Santa Anita Sprint Championship before sending him to the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar on Nov. 4.