Adare Manor wins the Clement L. Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar, a "Win and You're In" race for the Breeders' Cup Distaff. (Evers/Eclipse Sportswire)
Adare Manor has always had the class to add a Grade 1 race to her resume, and so it came as little surprise when she pulled it off as the 3-5 favorite in the Grade 1 Clement L. Hirsch Stakes Aug. 5 at Del Mar. Trainer Bob Baffert has called her a "big, long-striding filly," and she used that talent to overhaul front-running Elm Driveat the top of the stretch.
Elm Drive had the speed to try to steal the 1 1/16-mile Hirsch, something Baffert was well aware of when he worked Adare Manor six furlongs in 1:10 3/5 at Del Mar July 30. The trainer said that he advised jockey Juan Hernandez not to let Elm Drive get too far ahead in the early stages of the race.
"I knew the one (Elm Drive) is a really fast filly," Baffert said. "You want to stay close to her."
As Baffert anticipated, Elm Drive sped off to the early lead, with jockey Ricardo Gonzalez settling Elm Drive into fractions of :23.31 for the first quarter-mile and :46.68 for the half-mile. Hernandez had Adare Manor a length and a half back, in ideal stalking position.
"I just have to help her out of the gate because she was a little slow out of the gate today," Hernandez said. "But by the first turn she found a nice rhythm. I let her be quiet a little bit and save her energy."
Adare Manor tightened it up around the second turn and took the lead near the sixteenth pole.
"At the quarter pole I asked her to pick it up and she exploded again to the wire," Hernandez said. "She's a big filly; sometimes it takes a couple jumps to keep her momentum."
Desert Dawn ramped up from last and closed ground well. It wasn't enough to catch Adare Manor, who scored by a length in 1:43.33, but Desert Dawn finished 1 1/2 lengths ahead of Elm Drive for her second consecutive placing in the race. Kirstenbosch ran fourth, followed by Fun to Dream, who had raced in third early.
In addition to notching her first grade 1 victory, Adare Manor earned a "Win & You're In" berth to the Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff in the Hirsch, which is named for the late co-founder of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club. The 2022 Hirsch winner, Blue Stripe, lost last year's Distaff by just a nose to champion Malathaat.
The Hirsch increases Adare Manor's current win streak to four and is her fourth lifetime stakes win. She began 2023 following a 4 1/2-month layoff to finish second in a seven-furlong allowance/optional claimer Feb. 18 at Santa Anita Park. She returned March 31 to win a one-mile allowance/optional claimer and then picked off the April 29 Grade 2 Santa Maria Stakes and Grade 2 Santa Margarita Stakes before the Southern California circuit moved to Del Mar.
Baffert was winning his second Hirsch, following Fighting Mad in 2020. Though he has won 18 Breeders' Cup World Championship events, the trainer has yet to win the Distaff. The closest he came was when he saddled 3-year-old Abel Tasman to finish second in the 2017 Distaff by a half-length to 5-year-old Forever Unbridled. Abel Tasman went on to be voted the year's champion 3-year-old filly.
