San Gabriel distance a challenge for Friar's Road, Hit the Road

ARCADIA, Calif. – Friar’s Road and Hit the Road are not racing to their strengths in Sunday’s Grade 2 San Gabriel Stakes at Santa Anita. Friar’s Road’s best recent races have come at 1 1/4 miles or beyond, and Hit the Road is a miler, while the San Gabriel is run at 1 1/8 miles on turf.

Still, their recent performances make them leading contenders in the $200,000 San Gabriel Stakes, the first of six graded stakes on an 11-race opening-day program that begins at 11 a.m. Pacific.

Friar’s Road, trained by Michael McCarthy, was third in two Grade 2 races in the autumn – missing by a head in the John Henry Turf Championship at 1 1/4 miles at Santa Anita on Oct. 3, and losing by 1 1/4 lengths in the Hollywood Turf Cup at 1 1/2 miles at Del Mar on Nov. 26. In both races, Friar’s Road closed from well off the pace.

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Hit the Road, trained by Dan Blacker, has not started since he finished a troubled third by a half-length in a field of five in the Grade 2 City of Hope Mile on turf at Santa Anita on Oct. 2. Hit the Road missed a scheduled start in the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Del Mar on Nov. 6 because of an elevated temperature.

Hit the Road has won 2 of 5 starts this year. Hit the Road won his first two starts of the year, both one-mile turf races at Santa Anita, the Grade 3 Thunder Road Stakes in February and the Grade 1 Frank Kilroe Mile in March, the most prestigious victory in his 12-race career.

Jockey Umberto Rispoli is 3 for 3 aboard Hit the Road, and last rode him to the victory in the Thunder Road. He takes over for Florent Geroux on Sunday. Rispoli rode Friar’s Road in his last three starts.

Rispoli will need to give Hit the Road a patient ride to get the distance, Blacker said.

“The distance is a question mark,” Blacker said. “I think he will get a mile and an eighth, but is he as good at a mile and an eighth as he is at a mile?”

Blacker said Hit the Road needed to regain fitness following the illness that kept him out of the BC Mile.

“When his energy was back to 100 percent, we went back to breezing,” he said. “We needed every bit of the time between the Breeders’ Cup and this race to be ready.”

Jose Ortiz has the mount Sunday on Friar’s Road, a highly promising 4-year-old colt who has yet to win a stakes. In the Hollywood Turf Cup, Friar’s Road closed steadily, but could not catch winner Say the Word through the 817-foot stretch of Del Mar’s turf course. The stretch on the Santa Anita turf course is 170 feet longer, which should help Friar’s Road, McCarthy said.

“I think the short stretch at Del Mar works against this kind of horse,” McCarthy said.

The field includes the stakes winners Indian Peak, Majestic Eagle, and Bob and Jackie, who were third, fourth, and sixth in the Grade 2 Seabiscuit Handicap at 1 1/16 miles at Del Mar on Nov. 27, and the sharp recent allowance race winners Red Storm Risen and Ready Soul.