Del Mar’s Thanksgiving Day feature, the $100,000 Red Carpet H. (G3), proved popular to the turf distaffer set. Fourteen fillies and mares were entered for the 1 3/8-mile test, including a couple of Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf (G1) contenders – Responsibleforlove, who failed to draw in from the Filly & Mare Turf also-eligible list, and Peruvian “Win & You’re In” runner Birdie Gold, who wound up 12th in her tough North American debut.
Responsibleforlove rates as the 7-2 favorite on the morning line. The course-and-distance winner of the CTT and TOC H. during the traditional summer meet, the Neil Drysdale trainee was most recently a tough-trip third in the 1 1/4-mile Rodeo Drive (G1) at Santa Anita. Responsibleforlove lacked room on the inside in midstretch, but got through belatedly to miss second by a nose, and lost by three-quarters of a length. The extra furlong here figures to suit the daughter of Duke of Marmalade.
Birdie Gold has yet to race beyond about 1 1/4 miles, the distance of her career high in the Classico Pamplona (G1) that earned her a Breeders’ Cup ticket. Although her class level on this circuit remains to be determined, she’s eligible to fare better second time out for Gary Mandella, and the added ground may help the Birdstone sophomore.
Evo Campo, another California-based threat, ran down an overaggressive Responsibleforlove in the April 30 Santa Barbara (G3). The Paddy Gallagher mare was sidelined for six months, returning with a remote fourth in a one-mile Golden Gate allowance on the Tapeta. If that October 29 outing has knocked off the cobwebs, Evo Campo stands to improve for a trainer boasting a 32 percent strike rate in the “second off a layoff” category.
The Chad Brown-trained Galileo’s Song tops a trio of East Coast shippers and appears the value at 5-1. A Galileo half-sister to Grade 1 winner Magnificent Song, the Dell Ridge Farm colorbearer has finished a strong second – despite unfavorable pace scenarios – in last summer’s Boiling Springs (G3) and in the November 4 Long Island (G3). Hall of Famer Mike Smith picks up the mount on a filly due for a first stakes win, and arguably well spotted here. As an interesting tidbit, the Long Island winner, Arles, had missed by a whisker to Japan’s Nuovo Record in last year’s Red Carpet.
Graham Motion’s original plan was to run Lottie, until she drew the far outside post 14. So the Waya (G3) runner-up, and last-out Dowager (G3) third, was supplemented to Friday’s Hollywood Turf Cup (G2) versus males. La Manta Gris won her lone start at this trip, taking a Saratoga allowance for Rusty Arnold, but she must do better than her third in the Dueling Grounds Oaks.
Earring, bred in the purple as a daughter of Dansili and Irish co-highweight Together, was based in the East before trainer Tom Proctor moved her to his Southern California outpost this fall. Initially with Aidan O’Brien, she finished a half-length second in the Curragh’s Kilboy Estate (G2) in her Irish finale, and was denied in a photo in last November’s Long Island. Earring has yet to duplicate those results in 2017, but perhaps the change of scenery will make a difference. She makes her second start out west after an even fifth to How Unusual in an allowance.
Multiple Brazilian Group 1 queen Kiss Me Now could be worth another look at 20-1. She was a pleasing fourth in her North American debut in the CTT and TOC, and her ensuing two flops may be excusable. The cutback to 1 1/8 miles didn’t work as she was a belated sixth in the John C. Mabee (G2), and the addition of blinkers didn’t have the desired effect when she trailed in the Rodeo Drive. Now trainer Paulo Lobo takes the blinkers off, steps her back up in trip, and gives her a rider switch to Brice Blanc.
Other contenders include Laseen, rightly stretching out again off a fast-finishing fifth in the one-mile Goldikova (G2); Dynamic Mizzes K, third to Responsibleforlove in the CTT and TOC; Do the Dance, whose lone stakes score was a theft of the Kathryn Crosby here last November; Domestic Vintage, a stablemate of Responsibleforlove’s who was a slow-starting 12th in the Autumn Miss (G3); and multiple Hastings Park stakes scorer Victress, who may relish the distance but didn’t show much love for the surface in her only prior grass attempt.
