Nevada Beach cruises to win the G3 Native Diver, Benoit Photo
Jasmine Torres
Nevada Beachthe heavy 1-9 favorite, upped the pace and rolled to a half-length victory in Saturday’s $100,000 Grade III Native Diver Stakes by a mile and an eighth.
Nevada Beach and Juan Hernandez sat in third place, about three lengths off the lead entering the first turn. Westwood (8-1) and Umberto Rispoli riding the rail stubbornly maintained the lead in the backstretch British Isles (16-1) and Diego Herrera pushed him back half a length to his outside in second place. On the way to the far corner, the British Isles stuck its head in front of Westwood, Nevada Beach started its rally to its outside and rode alongside the new leader along the eighth pole. The British Isles fought back in the final two furlongs but could not get past Nevada Beach who won by half a length.
“He did it easily today,” Hernandez said. “He’s a big horse, he’s a train. He got the job done but he might want to run a bit more distance, he galloped out of the race well.”
Trained by Richard Baltas, the longshot British Isles finished two and a quarter lengths ahead of Westwood, who could not keep up with the dueling pair down the stretch and finished five and three quarter lengths ahead of Indispensable. Indispensable, trained by John Sadler and ridden by Hector Berrios, was last throughout, making a late bid around the far bend but fading down the stretch.
Nevada Beach, trained by Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, earned his second stakes win and third overall. He has improved his record to 6-4-1-0. The three-year-old Omaha Beach colt, owned by Mike Pegram, Karl Watson and Paul Weitman, increased his winnings to $426,550.
Nevada Beach returned $2.20 and $2.10. British Isles returned $4.80. With Clouseau’s scratch there was no more show betting.
The splits of the race were 23.42, 47.17, 1:11.25, 1:35.95 and a final time of 1:48.35.
Live racing resumes with a nine-race card on Sunday, first post time 12:30 p.m
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