Hard-luck Hit the Road might start season in Pegasus World Cup Turf

After a disrupted final two months of 2021, multiple stakes winner Hit the Road will have a workout at Santa Anita this weekend to determine his schedule.

Trainer Dan Blacker said Thursday that Hit the Road might start in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Turf Invitational on Jan. 29 at Gulfstream Park. The $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf is run at 1 1/8 miles.

“It’s not out of the question,” Blacker said. “It depends on how he works this weekend.”

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Hit the Road has not raced since a troubled third by a half-length in the Grade 2 City of Hope Mile on Oct. 2 at Santa Anita. Hit the Road was withdrawn from the Breeders’ Cup Mile on Nov. 6 at Del Mar because of illness, and withdrawn from the San Gabriel Stakes on Dec. 26 at Santa Anita when wet conditions forced the race to be transferred from turf to dirt.

“I feel bad for the owners,” Blacker said. “This horse has had a run of bad luck. We had to reset after we didn’t make the San Gabriel.”

Last winter, Hit the Road won one-mile turf races in his first two starts of the year– the Grade 3 Thunder Road Stakes in February and the Grade 1 Frank Kilroe Mile in March. Hit the Road, 5, has won 6 of 12 starts and earned $563,751 for D K Racing, Radley Equine, Taste of Victory Stables, Rick Gold, Tony Maslowski, and David Odmark.

This year, the $100,000 Thunder Road Stakes will be run Feb. 5.