San Pasqual Stakes – Grade II
1 1/8 Mile Graded Stake Purse $200.000 Four-Year-Olds And Upward. At SA
San Pasqual Stakes is a race that is next to impossible to handicap with three’s turning four and sixes turning seven, a four-year-old graded pro with only thirteen races and a seven-year-old with only sixteen races just coming into his own. It’s horses looking like they’re just getting started and old timers which look to be at the end of their career, and yet it’s hard to tell which is really happening at the beginning of the year. It feels like a race with eleven horses planning a surprise, and I, for one, don’t know what kind of surprise. Here’s the field:
Horse Owner Odds SRF
Classic Look Nakamura Stables *4-1 101
Diametric Mb Stables 4-1 100
Special Event Nakamura Stables 4-1 97
Red Font John Henry 4-1 94
Personal Ruler Mo Mentum Farm 5-1 99
Dont Ever Try It Night Rider Stables 6-1 101
Hurricane Ridge Maxmillion Farm 8-1 97
Dr Pepper TwinTowersRacing 8-1 88
Nimbus Two Thousand Bigchief Stables 10-1 99
Vulcan Lanfranco Stable 12-1 99
Gymnast had a tough time in his first mud try that knocked around a bit, and I think the race was a bit too short for his liking. You have to go back to last June to find a win for him, and that was the finishing of a three-race winning streak, the grade 3 Winn at CD which he had parlayed with the grade 3 Peter Pan at AQU and the $125.000 Mine That Bird Derby at SUN. But it’s not like he’s been suffering in the meantime in that he’s had a couple of pricey seconds between then and now, so he looks sharp enough to be a factor at the wire.
2 Dr Pepper TwinTowersRacing 88
Keikowin Racing auctioned Dr Pepper off for $77.000 after a promising showing in the $150.000 PID Mile to a stable who is notorious for taking horses like this up a notch. In a twenty-race career, he has tried only four stakes races and never hit the board. The first thing TwinTowersRacing tried is a 1 1/16-mile graded stakes that didn’t go well. However, add a sixteenth and run in the sunshine and the afterburners may kick in. Chance with this owner.
3 Vulcan Lanfranco Stable 99
Another lightly raced old timer, Vulcan comes here as a seven-year-old with only 16 races. That career of 16 races is 15 claiming and allowance races, and one stakes race… the one stakes race that got him here, and the story to that starts with Jormav’s decision to enter him for a $12.500 tag which Lanfranco Stable accepted. After one failed start at BTP, Lanfranco reeled off five seconds and firsts that culminated with a victory in the $100.000 Steady Growth Stakes at WO which earned an SRF 99 and a trip back to SA.
4 Red Font John Henry 94
Red Font is one of those three’s turning four, and he’s doing it with a $847.500 bankroll collected for his two owners, first breeder Wood Duck Stables who sold him to John Henry for $250.000 after a very impressive deep closing third in the Prk. His new connections were hoping for the same sort of run in the BEL but got a strange fail. For John Henry, he’s been rather hit and miss with a win in the grade 3 BC Derby at HST but too far back in BC Dirt Mile which resulted in making up seven lengths but not passing many horses. Like most deep closers, he will need the pace to set up just right for him.
5 Personal Ruler Mo Mentum Farm 98
And here is six turning seven Personal Ruler with a long history of trying to establish himself as regular graded company but thus far only one of his wins is a graded win that being the grade 3 Harlan at GP way back in December 2022. Wouldn’t you know, he finished 2026 with a win in the $75.000 Kris Kringle Handicap just to let us know he was still kicking up his heels. Or maybe it’s a winter thing: he broke his maiden in December 2021 and won the $75.000 Turkey Trot at PRX in November 2024, Anyway, that was a nice SRF 98 win to bring to this race.
6 Special Event Nakamura Stables 97
Special Event has taken his time. Seven races to get a win. Second win came on race 16, but then he started accelerating until his first stakes win was also his seventh win on race 28 and then on race 29, his very next race, came his first graded stakes win in the grade 3 Mr. Prospector at GP. Those two wins lead up to this race, a very nice support for his favoured stablemate.
7 Dont Ever Try It Night Rider Stables 101
When Dont Ever Try It started his career, he had the inconsistencies that plague deep closers. You could see how talented he was, but he was at the mercy of the pace. It took him four races to break his maiden. Then he ran a nice race in the $125.000 Pasco Stakes. Then he ran a disaster in the grade 3 Davis Stakes. So, they tried to blame it on his testicles rather than the pace and snipped him and for a race it looked like it worked because he went dynamite in the grade 2 TAM Derby, in the following race the grade 2 Wood Memorial and a typical deep closer disaster. So, that was that, breeder LionKing Stables sold him to Maxmillion Farm for $100.000 who settled down with him for his next 16 races as a journeyman allowance horse with the occasional stakes run until he offered him in a $9.500 claimer and Luz International saw a chance at a quick buck turn over, and it worked: he entered the horse in a $5.000 claimer, won the race and sold the horse for $5.000 to his current owner. Thing is, Night Rider Stables had a completely different agenda and three races after his claim he was back to winning graded level with a marathon victory in the grade 3 Valedictory Stakes at WO earning the SRF 101 that he brings into this race.
8 Classic Look Nakamura Stables 101
Classic Look at least has the most honest form at the moment coming off a courageous wire-to-wire win in the grade 3 Harlan at GP that registered a last out best SRF 101. Add to that a third the race before in the $250.000 Empire Classic at AQU and a win before that in the $300.000 PRX Dirt Mile and you’ve got a gelding that’s showing the best recent form in the field.
9 Nimbus Two Thousand Bigchief Stables 99
Nimbus Two Thousand: six years old and only thirteen races. More to the point, the history: last year at this time, you could have claimed him for $3.000, and he was a longshot! Five races ago, Bigchief moved him back to the dirt and he won a $20.000 claimer at 54-1 at PRX. Three races later he tried an allowance race at PRX and scored a three-length romp at 25-1. So, over to FG and the $100.000 Tenacious Stakes for an open one-length win at 102-1 with a SRF 99 and a trip to his first graded stakes race.
10 Hurricane Ridge The Sidley Stud 97
His sophomore year was a good year for Hurricane Ridge. The lion’s share of his $712.120 bankroll came in in 2024, and he made it to the BC Sprint, but that didn’t go all that well. Fractious auctioned him off for $300.000 after that, and he spent 2025 as a dedicated graded stakes horse. However, it was definitely not all wine and roses as he only won one graded stakes race, the grade 3 San Carlos Stakes at SA earned only $129.500, obviously not yet enough to cover his purchase price and recently not promising a win here.
11 Diametric Mb Stables 100
In the money 18 of 19, Diametric took a long, slow path to graded company, finally entering graded company in race number 18 winning the grade 3 Fayette at KEE, he followed that with a courageous third in the grade 2 Clark at CD. Now that he has proven himself worthy of grade 2 company, I think he will carry on as he has and be right there at the wire in spite of the car park post. In fact, I suspect the outside push will do him well for the early lead that he could just carry home.
Categories: Grade II, STAKES ARTICLES