Time to Travel may like switch to turf

Santa Anita is tops Saturday from a stakes standpoint with a Grade 1 doubleheader consisting of the Beholder Mile and Shoemaker Mile, worth $400,000 each. But there are noteworthy stakes elsewhere, too, such as the Grade 2, $500,000 Penn Mile, which heads a stakes-packed card at Penn National, and an interesting renewal of the Grade 3, $200,000 Pennine Ridge at Belmont.

Penn Mile

Big Score is very much the horse to beat. But Time to Travel is in this race, which means I am “obligated” to pick him and bet on him.

I liked and bet on Time to Travel in his last two starts – unsuccessfully – but I’m still chasing. I first liked him in the Lexington Stakes off fine efforts in his first two career starts in loaded maiden races at Gulfstream.

Time to Travel finished a good fourth in his debut to Timeline, who came back to win an allowance race at Aqueduct in isolation with a 101 Beyer Speed Figure and then took the Peter Pan with a 97 Beyer. Time to Travel then romped in his second start, soundly beating Meantime, who galloped in his next start, followed by a game second in the Peter Pan, and is now a candidate for the Belmont Stakes.

Time to Travel finished fourth in the Lexington, but his performance was good considering that he never capitalized on his speed edge and yet still finished much better than anyone else involved in the early pace.

I bet Time to Travel back in the Sir Barton Stakes on the Preakness undercard, and while he was three wide on the first turn and ran reasonably well in finishing second, I can’t make an excuse for him not getting the job done.

So, why am I still following Time to Travel? Because this will mark his first start on turf, the surface where he should excel. Not only is he out of the multiple turf stakes winner Like a Gem, he’s also a full brother to Hard Not to Like, who earned more than $1 million on turf and won the Grade 1 Diana in New York, the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley in Kentucky, and the Grade 1 Gamely in California. It also doesn’t hurt that trainer Michael Matz has a positive return on investment with horses making their first start on turf.

As for Big Score, solid efforts in stakes in his two starts this year (one of which he won) say he has improved from ages 2 to 3, and he was pretty darn good at 2. Moreover, he has a closing style that fits the likely pace scenario. The only thing wrong with Big Score on Saturday is his price, which will be short.

Pennine Ridge Stakes

This is another turf stakes for 3-year-olds – at least it’s a furlong longer than the Penn Mile – and it attracted Oscar Performance, Ticonderoga, and Good Samaritan, three of the best juvenile turf males of 2016. But that was last year, at least for Oscar Performance, who hasn’t nd looked anything like the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner in his two starts this season. And as for Ticonderoga, he showed in his fourth in the Transylvania most recently that he is still prone to serious lapses of focus.

Good Samaritan is my strong preference. An argument can be made that he was best when third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf after taking up and going wide into the first turn. In any case, Good Samaritan looked good when a rallying second in the American Turf on the Kentucky Derby undercard in his first start in six months, and I expect him to be a much tougher customer going forward.

Eatontown Stakes

For an innocuous Grade 3 race for females on turf, this headliner at Monmouth came up strong. It lured Time and Motion, a Grade 1 stakes winner last year at 3, as well as the Chad Brown-trained pair of Grand Jete and Light In Paris, who are prime win threats off impressive scores in their last starts. But I like Zipessa.

Zipessa showed vast improvement in her last three starts of 2016 – a game third in the Beverly D., a terrific second in the Rodeo Drive, and a creditable fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf. Zipessa gave way in the Sheepshead Bay in her 2017 debut, but that was on a swampy course at too long a distance. She will benefit from both that outing and the cutback in distance Saturday.