Malibu Stakes Picks
Why Bet? It is a competitive field, and your morning line favorite is the 2024 Kentucky Derby winner #6 Mystik Dan (5/2), who I will play against. On Thursday it will have been 1,069 days since an official winner of the Kentucky Derby won a subsequent race (Mandaloun on January 22, 2022). In fact, since 2013, only two Kentucky Derby winners not trained by Bob Baffert have won a subsequent race, which are Mandaloun and California Chrome. You also have a few horses coming out of the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, #1 Bentornato (3/1) and #8 Raging Torrent (9/2), and then you have a trio of Baffert runners who are all 6/1 or higher on the morning line. It’s a great betting race if you think you can beat some favorites.
Pace: It is Santa Anita, so the pace will appear fast for seven furlongs, but will be hardly disqualifying for those up on the front end. Look for #1 Bentornato (3/1) to gun it from the inside rail while Baffert’s #2 Pilot Commander (6/1) with jockey Juan Hernandez aboard will be applying early pressure as well. However, that horse has won stalking the pace and is switching off Lasix, so his early speed against this level of competition is in question. The only other main pace pressure will be from the outside in the form of #8 Raging Torrent (9/2). The rest of the field has won tracking or closing, with the X-factor being #6 Mystik Dan (5/2) who is traditionally tracks the pace, but he might show significantly more speed in the early going as he is fresh coming off a layoff and could be more aggressively ridden by Brian Hernandez Jr.
Santa Anita Park, Race 8, Malibu (G1), Post Time - 5:36 PM ET
#8 Raging Torrent (9/2) – The son of Maximum Mischief trained by Doug O’Neill owns the two highest career Beyer Speed Figures in the field (a pair of 104s) that came in two of his last four races. The winner of the Pat O’Brien (G2) knocked off 19-time winner The Chosen Vron that day who had been steamrolling sprint competition in California for years. Last time out in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, he got stuck with an unfortunate inside post position and could never get to his traditional spot either on the lead or closely stalking the pace. He can handle the seven-furlong distance seeing as he is 3-4 winning going that far. I also like that he has gotten in six official workouts coming out of the Breeders’ Cup including a bullet five-furlong work on December 1 where he cruised in 59.1 seconds to be first of 27 at Del Mar. He’s been training well and now draws the outside post. Expect jockey Frankie Dettori to get this horse out in good position early as his natural speed will take him to the front. He broke his maiden in debut tracking the pace, so he can rate even if his last three wins have all been gate-to-wire jobs. With a lack of front-end speed in this race, I think it might be a challenge for some of these horses to make up ground late on a track where speed tends to hold.
#1 Bentornato (3/1) – I loved this horse in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1) and was telling everyone that would listen that week that he was a crazy longshot I really liked. Well, he nearly made me look like a genius as he ran second at 28/1 to eventual winner Straight No Chaser while losing by a half-length. The Jose D’Angelo trainee has only lost to three horses going around one turn: Straight No Chaser, Book ‘em Danno, and Forever Young. That’s pretty good company. He draws the inside today, which could be a detriment considering trainer Bob Baffert has his main speed horse (and jockey) to his immediate outside. However, with the lack of any other speed in the race, the son of Valiant Minister should be able to hit a comfortable trip so long as he breaks cleanly. He's won before going the distance, but unlike last time out, you will not get as much of a price (or any price) on him this time around. Trainer Jose D’Angelo has been a rising star for years in this sport for those of us who follow racing in South Florida and his barn has been on fire over the last 10 days winning 28% of their entries. Jockey Luis Saez is great at getting horses out cleanly and is one of the strong finishers in the game. The horse showed a lot of guts battling down the stretch in the BC Sprint (G1) and has been working out beautifully including a local bullet work last week where he went five furlongs in 58.3 seconds. Again, I think this race will be controlled up front and I will have a hard time leaving this hard-knocking horse out of the mix.
#6 Mystik Dan (5/2) – The 2024 Kentucky Derby winner makes his return to the track since finishing eighth in the Belmont Stakes (G1) by over 15 lengths. He had been campaigned aggressively by trainer Ken McPeek leading up to that race as he never took a break from making his debut in October 2023 until running in Saratoga in June 2024. You do not see many elite young horses who train for nine straight months and make nine starts in that time. Credit to McPeek for going old school and running in all three legs of the Triple Crown, which absolutely helped create more excitement around the latter two events. As for Thursday, I will play against the son of Goldencents. McPeek is not known for getting his horses 100% cranked for debut as he is only 7% bringing horses back from 180-365-day layoffs over the last five years. That number drops to 0% when looking at bringing horses back from that long of a layoff into graded stakes competition. It seems like McPeek is using the race as a workout to get him ready for the Pegasus World Cup (G1) next month at Gulfstream Park, which suddenly looks like a much more winnable race considering Sierra Leone and Fierceness will not run. Additionally, Mystik Dan is traditionally a horse that likes to come from off the pace when doing two turns and could be a little further back than he would prefer facing top-tier sprint competition. He has been working out well and has taken to the track nicely since shipping out there from Fair Grounds, but I will play against him at a short price.
#7 Stronghold (8/1) – One of the more consistent horses in his crop, the son of Ghostzapper is 8-9 in the exacta with five career wins for trainer Phil D’Amato. However, upon closer inspection, he has been very carefully managed and has not repeatedly knocked heads against the best of his year, though it is hard to fault the way D’Amato has managed him. He was soundly defeated by Baffert’s top 3-year-old, Nysos, in the Bob Hope (G3) before losing to a lower-tiered Baffert runner, Wynstock, in the Los Al Futurity (G2). From there, D’Amato took him to Sunland Park to get some Kentucky Derby points, which paid off as he got the win in the Sunland Derby (G3) before returning home to Santa Anita and winning the Santa Anita Derby (G1), which was an okay field though hardly a Grade 1 as it was missing Baffert’s top two runners, Nysos and Muth. He ended up running an admirable seventh in the Kentucky Derby (G1) before losing to Dragoon Guard in the Indiana Derby (G2) and then finishing second again, this time to Seize the Grey, in the Pennsylvania Derby (G1). Again, these are all solid efforts, but outside of the Kentucky Derby you do not see the names Sierra Leone, Fierceness, or Dornoch, let alone the top three-year-old sprinters like Prince of Monaco, Book ‘em Danno, or Domestic Product. He has never run faster than a 92 Beyer Speed Figure and he is likely to be running mid-pack while traveling the shortest distance he’s seen since he was two years old. So why do I have him in my top four? Because he just runs his race and never turns in a bad effort. I do not think he is good enough to win, but I know he will not throw in a dud out of nowhere and he will finish strong down the lane with his grinding running style. To be clear, I really like him as a horse and quite frankly we need about a dozen more horses like him in the older division as a consistent Grade 2 or Grade 3 performer and winner. My analysis of how he has been managed is not a critique of D’Amato or the horse, but rather that he does not present as good of value as he might first appear. He is a classic horse I would use in all of my vertical wagers, but none of my Pick 5 tickets.