Treasury Bill makes his stakes debut for owners Gary and Mary West
and trainer Ron Ellis in next Sunday’s Grade II San Vicente Stakes for
3-year-olds at seven furlongs.
Where it leads on the Triple Crown trail for the son of Lemon
Drop Kid depends in part on where other prominent 3-year-olds owned by
the Wests make their next starts in quest of the Kentucky Derby on May
4, first and foremost among them, Robert B. Lewis winner Flashback, one
of a plethora of prospects trained by Bob Baffert.
“He’s doing well, but (going) seven-eighths of a mile against
talented maiden winners, it’s just not his ball game,” Ellis said of
Treasury Bill, who broke his maiden on Santa Anita’s wet/fast track at 6
½ furlongs on Jan. 27.
“We’re just trying to get untracked for some of the bigger Derby
preps. This will get another race under his belt, give him a little more
experience and we’ll move on to two turns.”
Where that might lead depends on where the other West sophomores
run. “We could wind up in Arkansas down the road,” Ellis said. “It’ll
be a chess game for a while.”
The good news is, Treasury Bill is in sharp form and hopefully
only improving. “We’re on an upward trajectory,” Ellis said. “We just
want to keep him doing that. We’ve still got a few months to go before
the big ones. This won’t be a big test for him because it’s only around
one turn, but his next race, when he runs in March, will be.”