Roderick tests Best Pal trend

DEL MAR, Calif. – Exceptional horses have won the Grade 2 Best Pal Stakes, while other Best Pal winners were easily forgotten. Yet most share one thing in common.

From future Triple Crown race winners Nyquist and Lookin At Lucky, to one-hit wonders such as Skyway and Azul Leon, Best Pal winners have been easy for bettors to find – favorites have won 17 of the past 25 editions.

Roderick tests the trend Saturday at Del Mar, where he starts favored in the $150,000 Best Pal, a six-furlong sprint for 2-year-olds. After viewing the colt’s impressive debut, it is clear why trainer Wesley Ward holds him in such high esteem.

“He breathes a little different air than your normal horse,” Ward said. “Every time we breeze him, he’s one of those eye-opening breezers. I knew we were going somewhere before we put him in his Belmont race.”

Roderick has already traveled plenty. His early works were in Florida and Kentucky, he shipped to New York for his debut romp, returned to Kentucky, then flew to California on Monday. Tuesday was his first day at Del Mar. According to Blake Heap, Ward’s assistant in California, Roderick acted like he owned the place.

“He trained like he’d been there the last couple months,” Ward said. “Blake said he stood there with the pony, and kind of watched. He galloped a lap and a half, pulled up, stood there at the three-eighths pole, looked at the grandstand, then walked right off the track.”

Saturday in the Best Pal, Roderick faces a deeper field than the four-runner field he dusted at Belmont. His race 6 rivals include Weston, a debut winner at Santa Anita; Herd Immunity, third in the Grade 3 Bashford Manor at Churchill Downs; and Ambivalent, second to Weston in his debut. Sonic Brees, Schnell, and Girther also were entered.

Roderick was purchased for $550,000 by Mike Hall and Sam Ross, whose stable is Breeze Easy. Expectations were high for Roderick, lower for Weston. Weston went through the same Keeneland September yearling sale, purchased for only $7,000 by Chris Drakos and trainer Ryan Hanson.

“Maiden-20 or maiden-50, that’s what we thought he was going to be,” Hanson said.

Early on, even that seemed ambitious. “He was miserable to break,” Hanson said. “When you saddled him, he’d just lay down.”

Weston was gelded in April, learned his job, and scored a front-running debut victory in a Santa Anita maiden special weight. He was the first winner sired by 2015 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner Hit It a Bomb.

Hanson said Weston has trained well over the Del Mar track, but like most in the field, his true quality is undetermined. “This race will tell us a lot more, but it looks like his form has held up,” Hanson said. “Some of the horses that ran behind him came back to run good races.”

Four ran back – one win and three seconds. Among his main rivals Saturday is a horse he defeated. Ambivalent, trained by Doug O’Neill, ran into a smidge of traffic in his debut and finished well.

“He trains like a horse that is a special horse,” O’Neill said. “The ultimate goal is the Del Mar Futurity [Sept. 7].”

Herd Immunity won his debut, then finished third in a Grade 3 won by Cazadero, favored to win the Grade 2 Saratoga Special on Friday. “To run third to [Cazadero], I thought was very encouraging,” trainer Peter Miller said.

Miller also starts speedster Girther. “He is fast. He’ll be out there winging it,” he said.

ADAM COGLIANESE/NYRA Best Pal Stakes favorite Roderick wins his debut at Belmont Park by 8 1/4 lengths.