San Francisco Mile Preview: Neptune’s Storm Tops Season-Ending Stakes

BERKELEY, CA – Trainer Richard Baltas’ Neptune’s Storm tops the list of turf runners entered to run in Sunday’s $250,000 San Francisco Mile Stakes (G3), the season-ending event for the Golden Gate Fields summer meet.

The San Francisco Mile is race 8 on the June 14 card and kicks off an all-turf Late Pick 4 sequence. The eight-horse field is evenly split between the best local turf runners and some tough invaders from Santa Anita Park.

Here is a look at the full field:

1. Camino Del Paraiso (6/1) – The battle-tested warhorse makes his third attempt at winning this event, having finished sixth in 2017 and fifth in 2018. The California-bred has finished second in his past four turf attempts, including the past two at the Grade 3 level while facing tougher foes at Santa Anita Park.

2. Arch Prince (15/1) – If this race was on the Tapeta synthetic main track rather than turf, he might be the favorite – he has won three of his past four starts, all over that surface. He will need to transfer his momentum over to the turf, where he has just 1 victory from 16 starts.

3. Majestic Eagle (10/1) – A mainstay on the southern California turf circuit, he won last year’s American Stakes (G3) while going 1 mile on the Santa Anita Park lawn. Following him north is Umberto Rispoli, a top turf rider whose only mount anywhere all weekend is this one.

4. Murad Khan (6/1) – Since moving to southern California midway through last year, he has put together a 7-3-1-2 over the grass. His lone off-the-board performance came last out in the Daytona Stakes (G3), but that was a 5 1/2-furlong blitz won by a top Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint (G1) contender whom he was only 2 1/2 lengths behind.

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5. Simply Breathless (12/1) – The field’s lone female has defeated boys more than once in her career, though that happened in her native Great Britain in 2017 and 2018. Still, this is a class drop because she faced Grade 1 foes in her past two starts, and she has a pair of stakes wins since moving stateside (including the 2019 Golden Poppy, a local 1 1/16-mile route).

6. Kiwi’s Dream (7/2) – After sprinting in his first 10 starts, he stretched out to wire a local 1 1/16-mile main track event in early March, then just missed doing the same thing against a common rival in the 1-mile All American Stakes. He has yet to try two turns on turf, but he has a 5-1-1-0 surface record and is expected to set the early pace.

7. Neptune’s Storm (3/1) – A consistent threat last year as a 3-year-old, he put together an 11-4-3-4 record including 3 stakes scores, topped by the Hill Prince Stakes (G2) at Belmont Park. He struggled in his 2020 debut while facing elders for the first time, but it was the Shoemaker Mile Stakes (G1), a “Win and You’re In” for the Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1), so this is a considerable class drop.

8. Restrainedvengence (5/2) – He got the best of Restrainedvengence in the All American Stakes last time out in his first synthetic attempt, which made him a stakes winner on all three surfaces. He was a head away from winning last fall’s City of Hope Mile Stakes (G2) at Santa Anita Park and won his lone local turf start, the 1 1/16-mile Rolling Green Stakes.