DEL MAR — What had shaped up as a memorable running of the Pacific Classic turned into one that horse-racing fans will simply be thinking about for a long time.
Instead of savoring history, they’ll be scratching their heads and trying to figure out how a long shot won Del Mar’s $1 million race Saturday.
Mixto, a 4-year-old with only one previous victory to his name, wrote his name next to the famous names in the honor roll of Pacific Classic winners by defeating Full Serrano by a half-length and leaving the more accomplished Reincarnate and Dr. Venkman third and fourth in a field of eight.
Mixto, who put his nose in front five strides before the wire, rewarded his backers in the on-site crowd of 12,484 with a $46.40 payoff for a $2 win wager.
Part of the reason this could happen was that would-be heavy favorite Adare Manor, the dominant mare who was to face male horses for the first time and try to be only the second female to win the Pacific Classic, was scratched from the race Friday after trainer Bob Baffert said she “tied up” — suffered muscle contractions or cramping — following a morning gallop Thursday.
But other horses could have taken advantage of the diminished race and couldn’t do what Mixto did.
Credit jockey Kyle Frey, who rode aggressively to earn his first Pacific Classic winner. And trainer Doug O’Neill, who had faith in a horse with meager credentials for a Grade I, 1 1/4-mile race, and won his second Pacific Classic. And owner Calumet Farm.
“He’s given us a few hints of being a special horse, but today he really validated the horse that he is,” O’Neill said in the winner’s circle. “It took a lot of patience, a lot of money by the owner to take care of this lovely horse. Today it all unfolded perfectly, and Kyle Frey rode a perfect race.”
Aboard Mixto for the first time, Frey placed the son of Good Magic and Musical Mystery second behind Full Serrano and jockey Reylu Gutierrez as they passed the stands the first time, and they stayed in those positions through average fractions all the way to the stretch.
The tactics made both horses threats to go all the way: Winners of recent Pacific Classics have raced on or close to the early lead, and Del Mar’s main running track has favored horses with early speed this summer.
“Honestly, I was intending to be in front,” said Frey, who started from the farthest-outside post. “But that inside horse (Full Serrano, from post six) took that away. (If) he was going to outlast me, (then) he was on the better horse.”
With the early-speed factor in mind, O’Neill tried to make it sound as if Mixto’s win made perfect sense.
“(In) long (races) on the dirt, if you’ve got a little bit of speed, you know you’ve got a shot. He’s run some races that, on numbers, he wasn’t that far out of it,” the trainer said.
Then he got serious.
“But I think we’d all be lying if we said we thought we’d be where we are right now,” he said.
The final time for the 1 1/4 miles was 2:02.10, nearly a second slower than the average for Pacific Classic winners in the decade since Del Mar switched back to dirt from a synthetic oval.
Look back at 33 previous Pacific Classics, and you won’t find a winner who came in with more modest accomplishments. Six winners came in without a graded stakes win, and three came in without any kind of stakes win (11-1 shot Borrego in 2005, 9-1 Higher Power in 2019 and 6-1 Tripoli in 2021). But none had come in with only the maiden win that Mixto earned at Del Mar in November 2023 in the sixth of his 14 lifetime starts.
O’Neill seemed to accept that many will see the result as fittingly unimpressive for a race weakened not only be the scratch of Adare Manor but also the unavailability last year’s Pacific Classic winner, the retired Arabian Knight, and the latest Santa Anita Handicap and Hollywood Gold Cup winners.
“Still, to make it here, you’ve got to stay injury-free, you’ve got to train every day, so credit to all these horses that made it here,” O’Neill said. “Was it the strongest Pacific Classic ever? Probably not. But will there be some horses that will come from this and do some good things down the road? I think so.”
O’Neill has won big races with long shots before. He said among the pleasant surprises in his career, this rates up there with I’ll Have Another’s 43-1 win in the 2012 Robert B. Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita. I’ll Have Another went on to win the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, and the trainer can only dream for a bright future for Mixto.“Hopefully we stay injury-free, and Breeders’ Cup Classic here we come,” O’Neill said
That Classic is Nov. 2 at Del Mar.
By then, fans might have figured out what happened in this Classic.
