Thursday TimeformUS Highlight Horse: Blossoming Erudite bred to handle switch to turf

Belmont at the Big A | Race 8 | Post Time 4:21 p.m. (ET)

There are a couple of runners in the main body of this field with positive turf experience, and they exit the same race. Tahila (#5) finished second in an Aug. 25 race at Saratoga in the second start of her career. However, it looks on paper like she did more running than was actually the case. She did make up some mild ground through the lane, but she actually got passed by the winner in deep stretch, just picking up second late by default. I thought it was only a mild improvement on her debut race at Aqueduct in July. I generally prefer to see runners from the Christophe Clement barn show their cards in their first couple of starts, so I’m not sure how much upside there is here.

Kya’s Kause (#6) might be the one you want out of that race. She was chasing a fast pace while racing wide on the turn, and she never threw in the towel despite fading to fifth as the race was coming apart late. Tom Morley rarely has his first-time starters cranked up to win, and she seems like a better candidate to improve out of that race.

There are a couple of first-time turfers that interest me. Dreamworkin (#8) took money on debut to get bet down to 6-1, and ran respectably. She lacked the early speed to get forward, but made a brief move to upper stretch before flattening out late. She has plenty of turf pedigree, being by decent turf influence Bolt d’Oro out of a turf-winning dam who is the daughter of multiple-stakes winning turf sprinter Unzip Me. Rick Dutrow switches her to turf second time out, and it’s reasonable to expect improvement.

My top pick at a likely bigger price is actually a horse who finished one position ahead of that rival last time. Blossoming Erudite (#3) went off at a huge price that day, but nevertheless showed good early speed to contest the pace before settling for fourth. She is another who is definitely bred to move up on turf. Solomini is still establishing himself as a sire but has had mild success with his progeny on turf. The dam ran exclusively on turf and is out of turf stakes winner Tight Precision. Carlos David has compiled an 8-3-4-0 record with maidens switching to turf for the first time in sprints, with a $2.60 win ROI, over the past five years. This filly has the action of one that should transfer her form to grass, and the low-profile jockey is likely to ensure a fair price.