By Emily Shields
The seventeenth annual Hollywood Park Turf Festival takes place starting the day after Thanksgiving, from November 28 – 30. Six graded stakes races, highlighted by the Hollywood Derby and The Matriarch, both rich grade 1 races, comprise the three-day-event, which hosts turf horses from all over the country.
The Turf Festival kicks off on Friday with the 1 1/16 mile, $400,000 Citation Handicap (gr. I) and the $100,000 Miesque Stakes (gr. III), followed by the $150,000 Hollywood Turf Express (gr. III) run at six furlongs and the one mile, $100,000 Generous Stakes (gr. III) on Saturday. The Hollywood Derby is 1 1/4 miles and The Matriarch is a mile, both races are worth $500,000 and will be run on Sunday.
Prior to the inauguration of the Breeders’ Cup World Championships in 1984, some of these races had championship implications for the winners, as they are some of the last major stakes run in the country each year. More recently, as the best horses in the world headed for the Breeders’ Cup instead, these races are used as a rebound spot for some top candidates who had either bad luck or a disappointing day in the Breeders’ Cup.
This year’s races are no exception, as at least six horses who last raced in the Breeders’ Cup at Oak Tree are expected to be entered, the best being Precious Kitten, defending champion of the Matriarch and fourth last out against colts in the Breeders’ Cup Mile (gr. I). The Matriarch, for older fillies and mares, is also expected to include Cocoa Beach, fresh out of the Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic, and Visit from the Filly and Mare Turf. Trainer Bobby Frankel, who will saddle Precious Kitten, has won the Matriarch in five of the last six runnings.
The Citation Handicap for older males is headlined by Whatsthescript, third in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, and Rebellion, who was second in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile. Some of the famous winners of this race include Gentlemen and Leroidesanimaux, both unstoppable horses on their best days.
Sophomore colts take the stage in the Hollywood Derby, which always boasts a deep and talented field. Top horses such as Johar, Marlin, and Showing Up have scored in this race, and this year’s field will pit two veterans of the 2008 Kentucky Derby, Court Vision and Cowboy Cal, against known turf stars like Gio Ponti and Madeo.
California Flag is the likely favorite for the Hollywood Turf Express, a mad dash of classy older sprinters. In 2004, Cajun Beat, Breeders’ Cup Sprint champion of the year before, took the race in impressive fashion, and last year California-bred Unusual Suspect rolled to victory despite being a three-year-old.
Trainer Todd Pletcher loves to start horses in the two juvenile races, and he will send out Bittel Road and Hype for the Generous Stakes, but they will have to get by Bill Mott’s stakes-winning-turf-horse Successful Mission. Pletcher won the race last year with The Leopard. Pletcher also won last year’s Miesque with Sea Chanter. Named after the two-time Breeders’ Cup Mile winning filly of the 1980’s, the Miesque will showcase a full field of juvenile fillies including Habaya and Platinum Stiletto.
