Baffert, Talamo a strong team

DEL MAR, Calif. – The work jockey Joe Talamo has done with the likes of Dabster in recent months has made him an increasingly vital cog in the barn of trainer Bob Baffert, for whom Talamo teamed last week to win with a pair of promising 2-year-olds, Mucho Gusto and Coliseum.

Dabster will make his fourth start under Talamo on Sunday at Del Mar in the Grade 3 Native Diver. They own two wins and a second in concert. Mucho Gusto and Coliseum are a combined 3 for 3 with Talamo.

Scotty McClellan, Talamo’s agent, said it was Talamo’s persistence that got him into the barn, first by working horses in the morning, and then by doing well in races in the afternoon.

“In the long run, he’s found a few nice ones out of the deal,” McClellan said.

Talamo was a regular work rider for Game Winner and McKinzie leading up to the Breeders’ Cup, and also occasionally worked Collected and West Coast.

“Bob knows how much work Joe has put in, and he was rewarded with two nice wins last week,” McClellan said.

Mucho Gusto won the Bob Hope. He could run next in the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Futurity on Dec. 8. Coliseum beat maidens in his debut. The Futurity would require him running back in three weeks, something Baffert seems reluctant to do with Coliseum off one race.

Regardless, Talamo is in a good spot.

“Joe’s done the work,” McClellan said. “He’s put himself in this position.”

Oxy Lady targeting Starlet

Oxy Lady, the five-length winner of the Grade 3 Tempted Stakes at Aqueduct at odds of 36-1, is being pointed to the Grade 1, $300,000 Starlet Stakes for 2-year-old fillies at Los Alamitos on Dec. 8, trainer Jack Sisterson said Friday.

Sisterson, the former assistant to trainer Doug O’Neill, said he prefers the Grade 1 status and the extra week of the Starlet compared to the Grade 2, $250,000 Demoiselle, scheduled for next Saturday at Aqueduct.

“It gives us an extra week to get over the big race at Aqueduct,” said Sisterson, who left O’Neill’s employ earlier this year to take a private training job for Calumet Farm, the owner of Oxy Lady.

Oxy Lady earned a 94 Beyer Speed Figure for her big Tempted win, her second victory in four starts.

The Starlet is run at 1 1/16 miles, compared to 1 1/8 miles in the Demoiselle.

On Friday at Keeneland, Oxy Lady worked five furlongs in 1:00.80 in company with an older colt, Sisterson said.

“It was a very good work, all in hand,” Sisterson said. “She showed us she came out of the race in very good, if not better, shape than she went into it.”

Declan Cannon, who rode Oxy Lady for the first time in the Tempted, worked Oxy Lady on Friday and is scheduled to ride her in the Starlet.

Others pointing to the Starlet are Vibrance, Chasing Yesterday, Its just an illusion, and potentially Mother Mother.

Elysea’s World to Baltas

Elysea’s World, the winner of three Grade 3 stakes in the last year, all in Florida and New Jersey, has joined trainer Richard Baltas’s stable at Santa Anita after being bought for $500,000 earlier this month.

Elysea’s World, 5, has won 6 of 22 starts and earned $566,222. Elysea’s World was bought at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale and is now owned by Abbondanza Racing, Jerry McClanahan, and Chris Dunn, Baltas said. Elysea’s World was previously trained by Chad Brown for Sheep Pond Partners and All Pro Racing.

Baltas said on Friday that Elysea’s World will not race until the winter-spring meeting at Santa Anita, which begins on Dec. 26.

“She’s going to start training soon,” he said.

An Irish-bred who won her career debut in a maiden race in France in 2015, Elysea’s World had her best season in 2018, winning half of her six starts. All three wins came in Grade 3 stakes – the Suwannee River at Gulfstream Park in February, the Matchmaker at Monmouth Park in July, and the Violet at Monmouth on Sept. 1.

In her last start for Brown, Elysea’s World was eighth in the Grade 1 E.P. Taylor Stakes at Woodbine on Oct. 13.

Win bodes well for Cohens

A promising victory by Amandine in an allowance race with a $40,000 claiming option at Del Mar on Thursday may be the start off a successful autumn and winter with European imports for the partnership of Red Barons Barn and Rancho Temescal.

Earlier this autumn, the family partnership, headed by father Jed and son Tim Cohen, bought six horses of racing age in England for approximately $680,000. Amandine, a 3-year-old British-bred filly by Shamardal, was not part of that group.

Tim Cohen, who heads Rancho Temescal, said in an email on Friday that Amandine was purchased privately. Trained by Jeff Mullins, Amandine closed from ninth in a field of 11 to win the optional claimer at a mile on turf by 3 3/4 lengths under jockey Drayden Van Dyke.

Cohen credited previous trainer David Simcock for keeping Amandine fit before she was sent to Mullins. Amandine has won 2 of 12 starts. In England, she won a maiden race at Leicester in July and was later second or third in four minor handicaps at Ascot and Newmarket.

Of the six purchased at the Tattersalls horses in training sale, five are 2-year-olds – Aadya, Cavern nd chipmunks, Eagle Song, Mofakker, and Thriving – and the other is a 3-year-old maiden filly named Daybreak. Thriving was entered in Saturday’s Grade 3 Jimmy Durante Stakes for fillies at Del Mar.

Cavern nd chipmunks was third in the Criterium de l’Ouest at Craon, France, in September.

Of those purchases, Eagle Song was the most expensive at $210,000. Eagle Song, a colt by No Nay Never, was previously trained in Ireland by Joseph O’Brien. Eagle Song has won 2 of 8 races, including consecutive starts in minor handicaps on the all-weather track at Dundalk Racecourse in Ireland in October.

◗ Mr Vargas, has been disqualified from a victory in a race at Del Mar on Aug. 18, Del Mar’s stewards ruled this week. Mr Vargas tested in excess of the permitted level of procaine, a Class 3 medication, according to the ruling. Brian Koriner trains Mr Vargas. The stewards said they have not decided whether to penalize Koriner, who said the issue resulted over required paperwork from his veterinarian, Melinda Blue, not being filed in a timely and proper manner. Procaine is used in conjunction with penicillin to aid in treating illness or infection. It is legal to use, but requires paperwork to be filed.

◗ Patrick Valenzuela is scheduled to have a hearing with the racing board next week in an attempt to be relicensed as a jockey in California. He holds an exercise rider’s license and is working every morning at Del Mar. Valenzuela, 56, has not ridden in a race since Dec. 8, 2016, at Fair Grounds. He has won 4,372 races, including the 1989 Kentucky Derby, in a career punctuated by substance abuse problems.