Trainer Mike Mitchell, with two wins to Ron McAnally’s one in the first
seven days of the meeting, is now only four behind McAnally on the track’s
all-time list for trainers.
Mitchell, 63 and in his 35th season here, has 431 victories at
Del Mar. Hall of Famer McAnally, 79, is at 435 in his 52nd Del Mar
season. Having previously passed Farrell Jones (374) for second place, Mitchell
advanced on McAnally with 16 wins here in 2010, and tied for third in the
standings with Bob Baffert behind Doug O’Neill. A six-time Del Mar training
champion, Mitchell came in off a Hollywood Park spring/summer meeting in which
he finished second to Baffert in victories but recorded a win rate of more than
40 percent.
The stable’s top stakes horses are the sprinter Camp Victory, who is being
pointed to the Pat O’Brien Stakes on Sunday, August 28, and the mare St.
Trinians, slated for the Clement L. Hirsch on Saturday, August 6.
Regarding his proximity to the top of the track training charts, Mitchell
said: “Ron McAnally is still training and I have great respect for him,” Mitchell
said.
In fact, McAnally-trained All Star Heart won Thursday’s featured seventh
race and his Sugarinthemorning could move McAnally into a tie for second on Del
Mar’s all-time stakes victory list with a win in Saturday’s $100,000 Fleet
Treat Stakes.
“But it (win record) is an achievement I would really like to have,”
Mitchell said. “I used to be a pony boy for Ronnie when I was first starting
out at the track and later I was an assistant to Farrell Jones. So they are two
of my ex-bosses.”