Johnson Has Hopes for Time To Smoke in Breeders’ Stakes

The surgeon general wouldn’t be caught betting on a 3-year-old colt named Time To Smoke in today’s $100,000 California Breeders’ Stakes at Santa Anita.

Neither will a lot of other people--not with Snow Chief running in the race. The winner of the Hollywood Futurity, two stakes at Santa Anita and one at Del Mar last year, Snow Chief will be heavily favored.

But trainer Patty Johnson has her hopes for Time To Smoke, just as she did for a 3-year-old called Fast Account last year. Fast Account didn’t win a race until the last three days of 1985, but he was second in the Santa Anita Derby and fourth in both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes and earned more than $150,000.

Time To Smoke, who was bred and is owned by Patty’s father, Jim Johnson, has made only three starts. He was fifth in his debut at Santa Anita last October, won a maiden race there three weeks later and then finished third in an overnight stake at Hollywood Park Dec. 22.

Time To Smoke lost at Hollywood by two lengths to Hy King and missed second by a head to Dancing Pirate, who is also running today.

“He got a little tired in that last race,” said Patty Johnson, who was only the fifth woman to saddle a Derby starter and the second to train a Belmont horse.

Time To Smoke will be ridden for the second time by Chris McCarron, who was aboard Fast Account for his fourths in the Derby and the Belmont. A tiring Tank’s Prospect caused a chain reaction of contact in the stretch run at the Derby, which probably cost Fast Account a chance to finish second behind Spend a Buck.

After the Belmont, Fast Account was idle until the current Santa Anita meeting. “There wasn’t anything wrong with him,” Johnson said. “But those Triple Crown races can take a lot out of a horse, and I didn’t run him again because I wanted to have a fresh horse for this year.”

In his final start as a 3-year-old, at Santa Anita Dec. 28, Fast Account acted as though he didn’t remember that his previous race was 1 1/2 miles. Running six furlongs with McCarron again on his back, he was a convincing winner in 1:09.

“I thought he’d come back running good, but I didn’t think he’d win sprinting,” Johnson said. “He’s a lot better horse than he was last year.”

Johnson plans to run Fast Account in the San Fernando Stakes next Sunday.