Pacific Classic Stakes 2026
Two Breeders’ Cup qualifying races are at Del Mar this weekend, but the bigger and better of the two is the Grade 1 Pacific Classic Stakes. The winner of this race earns an automatic entry into the Breeders’ Cup Classic, which will be run at Keeneland on Halloween weekend.
As you would expect with a race of this magnitude, there are some very accomplished and notable runners in the field, as 11 entries are expected to hit the starting gate. This is Race 10 on the Saturday schedule with a scheduled post time of 9:30 p.m. ET.
A lot of eyes are on the rail and the outside, as Om N Joy drew the No. 1 slot and will run against the boys, hoping to be the second female horse to win the Pacific Classic after Beholder did it in 2015. The far outside No. 11 slot belongs to Knightsbridge, whose 122 Beyer in the Monmouth Cup was the best figure since 2022 according to our friends at DRF. But, there are a lot of interesting contenders in between.
Here are the Pacific Classic Stakes post positions, horses, jockeys, trainers, and odds:
| Post | Horse | Jockey | Trainer | Odds |
| 1 | Om N Joy | K. Desormeaux | A. Ordonez | 20-1 |
| 2 | Forged Steel | E. Gonzalez | S. Joseph Jr. | 5-1 |
| 3 | Finger | K. Tosaki | H. Tanaka | 8-1 |
| 4 | Subsanador | M. Smith | R. Mandella | 12-1 |
| 5 | Malarchuk | U. Rispoli | M. McCarthy | 10-1 |
| 6 | Original Sin | J. Hernandez | B. Walsh | 15-1 |
| 7 | Hit Show | F. Geroux | B. Cox | 6-1 |
| 8 | British Isles | D. Herrera | R. Baltas | 12-1 |
| 9 | Navajo | M. Husbands | S. Joseph Jr. | 8-1 |
| 10 | Full Serrano | J. Rosario | J. Sadler | 8-1 |
| 11 | Knightsbridge | J. Alvarado | B. Mott | 5/2 |
With a lot of top riders still picking up mounts at Saratoga, not as many of these guys are household names for casual racing fans, but there are a lot of accomplished jocks in the state of California running here. The one major outlier is Finger, a Japanese-bred horse and the only 3-year-old in the field. Forever Young winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic on this track and at this distance may have pushed trainer Hiroyasu Tanaka and the connections to take a shot in something of a weaker field because some of the top runners that would have been in this field retired.
Subsanador and Full Serrano are both international horses as well, but these Argentinian-bred 7-year-olds have been racing in the States. Finger is making his U.S. debut.
Let’s check out the field and see what the options are:
1. Om N Joy (20-1; Desormeaux/Ordonez): Kent Desormeaux knows this six-time winner well, as he rode her to a win in the Santa Margarita Stakes and a runner-up in the Clement L. Hirsch earlier this year. The Santa Margarita was particularly promising because she won over 1 ⅛ in her longest race to date. When she ran second in the Hirsch, she was on an extended layoff. She’s coming back on three weeks here. She’s hit the board in two of her three G1 starts in California and finished fifth with a long ship to Oaklawn for the Apple Blossom back in April.
2. Forged Steel (5-1; Gonzalez/Joseph): The first of two Saffie Joseph entries, Forged Steel should start at the front of the pack here. The question is whether or not he can do what he did in the Hollywood Gold Cup Stakes. The son of Vekoma went wire-to-wire there by 9 ½ lengths, but that was a lesser field than what he’ll face here. He did finish well ahead of runner-up Malarchuk, who breaks from the 5 here. Handicappers are likely to be skeptical with Forged Steel, as he failed to hit the board in the Suburban Stakes after running away with the Hollywood Gold Cup, but that was a cross-country ship to Saratoga for July 4. He hasn’t run since then after being scratched from the Whitney Stakes.
3. Finger (8-1; Tosaki/Tanaka): If Forged Steel isn’t at the front out of the gate, perhaps it will be Finger. The 3-year-old son of Gun Runner has two of the three legs of the Japan Dirt Triple Crown under his belt with wins in the Haneda Hai and the Tokyo Derby, which was run at the distance that he’ll try to conquer in this one. The Japan Dirt Classic on Oct. 7 is where he’s pointed, but a win here would put him in the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Oct. 31 and that would be an interesting turnaround. Nevertheless, he has to show well here first in his first U.S. race. The size of the field shouldn’t bother him, as he’s faced bigger fields in Japan, but the class of this race is noticeably higher.
4. Subsanador (12-1; Smith/Mandella): Will we see a blast from the past out of Subsanador? The 7-year-old has nine career wins, but hasn’t won since the California Crown Stakes in Sept. 2024. Granted, he’s only run three races this year and didn’t run in 2025. His last start came at Santa Anita and was a data point worthy of this long shot price, stumbling to a fifth-place finish in a race of five. Veteran rider Mike Smith has to get him out of the gate clean here to have a shot, but even then, the current form is subpar at best.
5. Malarchuk (10-1; Rispoli/McCarthy): The son of Nyquist is an interesting option for those seeking out a long shot price in a pretty open race. Michael McCarthy only got Malarchuk this year and he’s had back-to-back runner-up finishes in the Sunland Park Stakes and the G2 Hollywood Gold Cup. Malarchuk hadn’t run any stakes races for Chad Brown, but McCarthy threw him right into the fire on a big layoff. This is another decent-sized layoff, as he’ll be about three months removed from his last start at Santa Anita. Del Mar will be a new track for the 5-year-old bay and it will also be a new rider with Umberto Rispoli in the irons.
6. Original Sin (15-1; Hernandez/Walsh): Juan Hernandez has the mount on this Curlin colt who ships in from Saratoga for his first foray in California. He won the G3 Blame Stakes at Churchill Downs and then finished ninth in the Suburban stretching out to 1 ¼ miles for the first time. He won twice at 1 ⅛ prior to that, so Walsh and the connections felt it prudent to give him a shot at a longer distance. While he didn’t run well, he gets one of California’s best riders and a guy with nearly $114 million in career earnings. Hernandez entered the week with a 27% win rate in the summer meet and this Calumet Farm 4-year-old will likely see his price pushed down as post time approaches.
7. Hit Show (6-1; Cox/Geroux): The son of Candy Ride and Actress, maternal grandson of Tapit, and far and away the highest earner in the field, Hit Show enters off of a place finish in the G2 Suburban Stakes at Saratoga. He’s been everywhere in his racing career, including Dubai, where he won the Dubai World Cup in April of last year at Meydan. He ran it again this year and finished fifth, following that up with a show finish in the Blame Stakes behind winner Original Sin, who is 15-1 here. The 6-year-old has 12 wins in 27 races, but they are pretty spread out and he’s 1-for-4 this year.
8. British Isles (12-1; Herrera/Baltas): Despite what the name would suggest, this Kentucky-born chestnut has never been to the UK. He has, however, run all over the place, including a couple handfuls of starts at Del Mar and a bushelful of starts at Santa Anita. He, too, ran the Hollywood Gold Cup with Forged Steel and Malarchuk, but ran fourth, as he moved back to the dirt five races ago after a lot of turf trips. He did win the G1 Santa Anita Handicap and was second in his return to dirt in the Native Diver Stakes to Nevada Beach right here at Del Mar last year. Diego Herrera was the rider that day and he will be the rider again here over the same mile-and-a-quarter distance.
9. Navajo Warrior (8-1; Husbands/Joseph): The second Saffie Joseph Jr. entry has 10 wins in 18 starts, but is still looking for a big score with just over $630,000 in career earnings. Maybe he is building up to it, as the 5-year-old son of Candy Ride and Crosswinds has won back-to-back stakes races. He won in the Pimlico Special Stakes back in May and the Prairie Meadows Cornhusker Handicap in July, both Grade 3 events. Those races were 1 3/16 and 1 ⅛, as he’ll look to go 1 ¼ for the first time ever. It took him five races to win his maiden, which came over a mile on the Del Mar dirt on Halloween 2024. Since then, he’s only lost three times in 13 starts. Micah Husbands, who is having the best year of his young career, gets the ride here with over $12,000 per start and nearly $4 million in earnings entering the week. He had the Prairie Meadows ride on this pacesetter.
10. Full Serrano (8-1; Rosario/Sadler): Full Serrano returns to the Del Mar dirt and has a heavy-hitting team with earnings leader Joel Rosario and top-five earner John Sadler for the summer meet. For Rosario, it’s a volume thing, as Hernandez has won a higher percentage of races, he just hasn’t raced nearly as much as Rosario, who has more starts than anybody. You wonder if maybe that creates a little value in leaving Full Serrano off your tickets. The runner-up in the 2024 Pacific Classic and winner in the 2024 Del Mar Dirt Mile hasn’t won since and was third in the Pegasus World Cup and fourth in the Oaklawn Mile earlier this year. Now he stretches back out to a mile-and-a-quarter and that just doesn’t seem promising.
11. Knightsbridge (5/2; Alvarado/Mott): The 5-year-old son of Nyquist seemed to like making a second turn, given the elite run he had in the Monmouth Cup just over a month ago. Primarily a miler, Knightsbridge won literally running away by more than 10 lengths. That field was nowhere near the caliber of this one, but he also ran second between Nysos and Journalism in the Met Mile. Unfortunately, we won’t see a repeat of that with Nysos and Journalism retired, but it makes a ton of sense for Knightsbridge to be the favorite here. Flavien Prat had the Monmouth ride for Bill Mott, but he’ll go back to Junior Alvarado, who had the ride in the Met Mile, for this one.
Pacific Classic Stakes Picks
A tough handicap here. Knightsbridge is the deserving favorite, but this is another extra quarter mile above his career-long run. Maternal grandfather Bernardini didn’t mind distance and neither did Nyquist, who won the 2016 Kentucky Derby. He seems like a must in exactas and trifectas, and he may very well win the race.
But, I’ll go with a price here and look at Finger, the Japanese horse who can get to the front, save a bit of energy, and make a push again at the end. I also really like Original Sin’s current form and Hernandez in the mount.
Prediction
3 Finger
11 Knightsbridge
6 Original Sin
2 Forged Steel
