Surface switch shouldn't hurt La Tia

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – La Tia spent her entire six-start 2013 campaign – and it was a good one – racing on turf. She starts her 2014 season in Friday’s third race at Arlington on Polytrack, but despite a potentially negative pace scenario and the surface switch, La Tia has a good chance to begin the year with her seventh win.

La Tia is one of six fillies and mares entered in a 1 1/16-mile race with multiple high-end allowance conditions that’s also open to $80,000 claimers, though no horse is entered for the price. Her most recent foray onto Polytrack produced an 11th-place finish in the Raven Run Stakes during the fall 2012 meet at Keeneland, but that race came around one turn at seven furlongs, and in her two previous Polytrack races, both routes, La Tia won the La Lorgnette at Woodbine and the Grade 3 Arlington Oaks here.

Trained by Armando de la Cerda for owner-breeder Salvador Hernandez, La Tia is a confirmed front-runner, and all her best races have come when she leads. There’s both good and bad to that. The good: Arlington’s main track played kindly to inside speed horses during the meet’s opening three-day race week. The bad: Two or three of her rivals Friday also could bid for the front end.

Among them are horses drawn just inside and outside of La Tia, Masquerade and Goldway. Masquerade is one of two in the race for trainer Mike Stidham, who also sends out the capable Every Way, and breaking from the rail, Masquerade’s best chance almost certainly would come if she’s sent running for the front.

Masquerade won a second-level allowance race here in her only previous synthetic-surface try and is not obviously overmatched Friday. Nor is Goldway, who clearly was in need of her April 26 comeback run in a Hawthorne dirt stakes and has been first or second in four of her five Polytrack starts.

Distinctive Review might try for the lead, but she’s probably not fast enough to get it nor substantive enough to make a real impact in this solid spot. And while Every Way could get the best setup, stalking the contested pace without losing too much ground, it remains to be seen if she can produce a peak performance on a surface other than turf.

La Tia has shown that she can, and a good-looking work pattern dating to late March at Hawthorne includes a sharp six-furlong Arlington drill in 1:12.80 on April 27. La Tia won her 2012 debut in May at Arlington and her 2013 debut in May at Arlington. The hat trick is well within range.