Breeders' Cup Mile: Brown plans on taking his Times

On the surface, it looks like Time Test has failed every test to prove himself a true top-class horse. In races other than Grade 1’s or Group 1’s, he has six wins from nine tries, but in starts at the highest level he is 0 for 5.

Maybe it’s still not time to give up on Time Test winning a major race. Chad Brown, who trains the 5-year-old for Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Farms, isn’t ready.

“He trains like a horse that you just feel has that Grade 1 in him,” Brown said. “I think he can win a big one. Hopefully, the conditions are right this fall that he can accomplish that.”

Time Test will make his next start Oct. 7 at Keeneland in the Grade 1 Shadwell Turf Mile and is being aimed at the Nov. 4 Breeders’ Cup Mile at Del Mar.

He’s not the only horse in Brown’s barn under BC Mile consideration. Also possible is the lightly raced but deeply talented Annals of Time, who made his 2017 debut in a recent Belmont allowance race.

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As for Time Test, his issue is a lack of top-level versatility. Time Test appears to have a fairly small window in which he might produce an elite performance – eight or nine furlongs over firm turf.

Four of his five starts in Grade 1’s or Group 1’s have come on wet courses, and the other was over 1 1/4 miles in the Manhattan earlier this year. Juddmonte sent Time Test to the United States for 2017 looking for firm turf courses, but while the Manhattan fit the bill, the Fort Marcy and the Aug. 12 Fourstardave, in which Time Test was second to top BC Mile hope World Approval, were contested on softer ground.

“I think this horse has caught some unlucky racing conditions,” Brown said. “He caught very soft ground [in the Fourstardave] and just like in the Fort Marcy he lost his action. He trains grandly in the morning on firm ground. It’s been frustrating.”

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While Time Test at age 5 might not have quite hit his ceiling, that is almost certainly the case with 4-year-old Annals of Time, who debuted in November 2015 but has made only five starts. One of those races came at the site of the 2017 Breeders’ Cup, Del Mar, where Annals of Time made multiple Grade 1 winner Beach Patrol look like he was running through deep water when he went past him on the way to winning the Hollywood Derby by 1 1/2 lengths last December. That, however, was his last race before knocking out his second allowance condition Sept. 16 at Belmont.

“He’s trained brilliantly since he was 2-year-old,” Brown said. “He’s had no one physical issue that could be categorized as serious – just a series of things. We give all our horses plenty of time anyway, but a horse as good as him, especially so.”

There are several options for Annals of Time this fall; Brown said the leading one is training up to a BC Mile start.

“He’s a lightly raced horse that runs big numbers, and he might be the kind of horse that could take an unconventional route to that race,” Brown said. “He’s probably going to run better fresh, anyway.”

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