For Robertson, Wynn Time like a blast from the past

A 4-year-old Illinois homebred trained by Hugh Robertson named Wynn Time has won four of his first five starts, beating open competition while looking like he could be a stakes horse with continued development.

It’s enough to set the mind roaming back to the summer of 1993. That was when Robertson debuted an Illinois homebred named Polar Expedition at Arlington Park. Just for the record, Robertson told the gelding’s owner, James Cody, to bet all he wanted. Polar Expedition won by more than 10 lengths.

Polar Expedition proved far more than a bet on a first-time starter. He went on to win 14 of 29 starts, including multiple graded stakes, with a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 111, and retired with just shy of $1.5 million in career earnings as one of the best Illinois-breds ever. Robertson went to see the old man last summer at a farm near Joliet, Ill., where a man named Bob Johnson had long taken care of the aging racehorse. Polar Expedition was 26 and was showing his age. He passed into horse heaven not long after his trainer’s visit.

Wynn Time has a long way to go even to brush up against Polar Expedition’s coattails, but he has done little wrong since making the races for owner and breeder James Mentz last August at Arlington, and he may be favored in the featured fifth race Saturday at Fair Grounds, a third-level six-furlong dirt allowance race also open to $80,000 claimers.

By Three Hour Nap, whom Robertson also trained, Wynn Time won twice last year in Chicago and already has made three starts at this Fair Grounds meet, Robertson coming from an older school of horsemen who still run their horses at something like three-week intervals. Wynn Time took his only defeat in his first Fair Grounds start and has come back to win first- and second-level allowance races while appearing to race more confidently with every start.

He will need to call on his professionalism and talent Saturday while breaking from the rail in a short field that includes a couple of worthy rivals.

Behavioral Bias also ripped through his first and second allowance conditions in his two most recent starts, and while Wynn Time raced in January, Behavioral Bias was being freshened up for trainer Al Stall. He’s drawn outside of Wynn Time and could prove his equal. Also worth win consideration is Stand Him Up, who might have regressed in the Louisiana Champions Day Sprint following a powerful comeback win in the Heitai Stakes but won the race anyway.

There are no stakes on the Saturday card, but the program is a strong one nonetheless. Race 2 is a Louisiana-bred turf route that looks a lot like recent stakes races in the division, and races 6, 7, and 8 all are open allowance races with deep, competitive fields.