Hit the Road may target rare Del Mar stakes sweep

Hit the Road, winner of the $103,500 Runhappy Oceanside Stakes on Friday, may be given a chance at Del Mar history this summer.

The track runs three turf stakes for 3-year-olds at the summer meeting – the Oceanside at a mile on opening day, the Grade 3 La Jolla Handicap at 1 1/16 miles on Aug. 9, and the Grade 2 Del Mar Derby at 1 1/8 miles on Sept. 5.

No horse has swept the three races since Ladies Din in 1998, an indication of the difficulty in conquering the series and the quirks in race conditions.

Aside from needing a 3-year-old good enough to win three consecutive stakes, there is an eligibility factor. The Oceanside is restricted to nonwinners of a first-place purse of $50,000 at a mile or longer in the current year, which eliminates 3-year-olds who won have won recent stakes worth $100,000 or more. Also, the two graded stakes later in the meeting often draw runners from outside of California, or stakes winners pointed to those races for months.

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The ideal candidate is a 3-year-old improving through the summer. Hit the Road could fit that criteria.

Trainer Dan Blacker said Saturday that Hit the Road will “most likely” run in the $125,000 La Jolla Handicap. A longer Del Mar meeting this year, stretched from early July to Labor Day weekend, puts additional time between the three stakes, an attractive schedule for Blacker.

“He seems like he runs his best races when he’s had a bit of time between races,” Blacker said. “In a normal year, I might point him for the Del Mar Derby. We have that extra week, a month between races, [and] it leaves the option open to do all three. We’ll let him tell us if he’s ready for the La Jolla.”

Three of the last five winners of the Oceanside have started in the La Jolla. Jasikan won the 2019 Oceanside and was third in the La Jolla Handicap. He did not start in the Del Mar Derby. In 2018, Restrainedvengence won the Oceanside and finished fifth in the La Jolla Handicap and Del Mar Derby.

Monster Bea was slightly better in 2016, winning the Oceanside and finishing fourth in the next two races.

Prior to the Oceanside, Blacker said there was a possibility Hit the Road could start in the $100,000 Shared Belief Stakes for 3-year-olds on dirt on Aug. 1, but he leaned away from that idea Saturday.

“I think it’s 95 percent that he’s a grass horse – the way he runs and the way he’s built,” Blacker said. “Never say never. He has worked extremely well on the main track. The really good grass ones do that.”

Hit the Road, who races for the partnership of DK Racing, Radley Equine, Taste of Victory Stables, Rick Gold, and Dave Odmark, has won 4 of 7 starts and earned $194,751. In the Oceanside, Hit the Road closed from fifth in the final quarter-mile, rallying between horses to win by 1 3/4 lengths as the 8-5 favorite.

The Oceanside Stakes was Hit the Road’s second stakes win, preceded by the $100,702 Zuma Beach Stakes at Santa Anita last October.

Hit the Road was later seventh in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Santa Anita, but was disqualified and placed last of 14 for causing interference. He finished fourth in the Grade 3 Cecil B. DeMille Stakes at Del Mar in his final start of 2019.

Hit the Road won his 2020 debut in an allowance race with a $62,500 claiming option against older horses at a mile on turf May 22 at Santa Anita.

Blacker said the losses last fall taught him a lot about Hit the Road.

“I know the horse a lot better now,” he said. “He needs more training. I think I had him a little too fresh.

“I think it’s fortunate that we have a talented horse.”