Thunder Road Stakes has the look of anyone's race

The best betting race on Saturday’s 10-race program at Santa Anita is the finale, the Grade 3 Thunder Road Stakes for turf milers. A winning trifecta or exacta ticket will provide a handsome reward.

A key prep race for the Grade 1 Frank Kilroe Mile on March 4, the $100,000 Thunder Road Stakes has drawn a field of 12, including eight graded stakes winners as well as the winner of one of the toughest races at Royal Ascot each year.

The Thunder Road will be the 2023 debut for There Goes Harvard, a two-time winner on turf who won the Grade 1 Hollywood Gold Cup at 1 1/4 miles on dirt last May. Air Force Red, who won the Grade 2 Joe Hernandez Stakes on the hillside turf course on Dec. 31, goes for his third consecutive stakes win.

The four-time stakes winner Hit the Road will be a longshot. Hit the Road finished last of 10 in the Hernandez in his first start since an eighth-place finish in the Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational at Gulfstream Park in January 2022.

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Those races would seemingly give Hit the Road little chance to win such a competitive race as the Thunder Road, but trainer Dan Blacker has seen clues in the last month to believe Hit the Road can end a five-race losing streak, since he won the Kilroe Mile in March 2021. Hit the Road won the 2021 Thunder Road prior to the Kilroe that season.

Since the loss in the Hernandez, Blacker has been impressed by Hit the Road’s workouts, notably five furlongs in 1:00.80 on Jan. 21 and a half-mile in 48.20 last Saturday.

“I’ve seen encouraging signs,” Blacker said. “He worked strongly. He’s doing really well.

“Hopefully, he can come back.”

In the Hernandez, Hit the Road was seventh early and was not a factor under jockey Frankie Dettori, finishing 6 1/2 lengths behind Air Force Red.

“I was down after that race,” Blacker said.

For the Thunder Road, Hit the Road will have a new rider in Kazushi Kimura. In the Thunder Road, Dettori has the mount on Dark Shift, who won the 29-runner Royal Hunt Cup at a straightaway mile at Royal Ascot in Britain last June. Dark Shift, trained by Conor Murphy, was fifth in his first start in the United States, an allowance race at Keeneland in October.

Kimura, the leading rider at Woodbine the last two years, is riding at Santa Anita this winter and has found himself in increasing demand among a tough group of jockeys. He has won two stakes this year and has mounts in four races on Saturday.

On Sunday, Kimura is scheduled to ride Avenue in the Grade 2 San Marcos Stakes at 1 1/4 miles on turf.

Kimura said last weekend that he plans to stay in California until early spring before returning to Woodbine, and that he is likely to return to California next winter.

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