The 3-year-old mile-and-a-eighth stakes serves as a training ground for the Belmont Derby (G1T).
The results are no longer automatic for the Godolphin runners that trainer Charlie Appleby sends to the States.
Rewind to 2021, when Appleby's horses won nine out of 18 races, or an astounding 50% of their starts, in North America.
Next year, eight out of seventeen were marked with a 47%.
However, just three of the 14 attempts have resulted in triumphs, making the win percentage for the trips from Great Britain to the United States this year quite meagre at 21%.
The highly acclaimed European conditioner will look to increase those figures on May 25 at Aqueduct Racetrack when he enters Godolphin's Legend of Time in the $200,000 Pennine Ridge Stakes (G2T) for three-year-olds.
As a prelude to the July 6 Belmont Derby Invitational Stakes (G1T), the mile-and-a-eighth turf stakes offer the first three finishers in the field of seven automatic berths to the grade 1 turf stakes. Additionally, it will present Godolphin with another opportunity to win a grade 2 in New York City, after Silver Knott won the May 11 Man o' War Stakes (G2T) following defeats by Appleby runners in their first two runs in 2024.
Legend of Time, a son of Sea The Stars, made his debut in the United States on May 4 at Churchill Downs. He started as a 6-5 favourite and tried to keep up with the leaders in the American Turf Stakes (G2T), but he finished sixth, five lengths behind the winning 47-1 contender Trikari.
"It was a big learning curve in that first race at Churchill, but he shipped up to Saratoga and settled in here at Greentree nicely. He's settled into a nice rhythm here and we're very happy with the way he's going into the race," stated Chris Connett, an assistant trainer for Appleby currently based at Godolphin's Greentree training centre in Saratoga.
The colt, bred by Lordship Stud and Sunderland Holding, had won four of five starts in Dubai and Great Britain before that but had finished last in his only attempt in a group stakes race.
The race will also be Repole Stable's and St. Eilas Stable's Triple Espresso's return to the grass.
The son of Omaha Beach finished fourth in the Jeff Ruby Steaks (G3) for Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher, who has won the Pennine Ridge three times, last time out on Tapeta. The three-year-old had finished fourth in the Colonel Liam Stakes at Gulfstream Park on turf before that.
Another three-time Pennine Ridge winner, trainer Chad Brown, will campaign two maiden winners: White Palomino for James Bakke and Gerald Isbister, and Risk Tolerance for Klaravich Stables.
Risk Tolerance, a Kingman colt, won his turf course debut at Aqueduct on April 21 by a margin of three-quarters of a length. In his second run at Keeneland on April 6, White Palomino won a maiden race.
Royal Majesty of Besilu Stables is coming off a Keeneland allowance win on April 13. He was sixth in the Colonel Liam for trainer Bill Mott, and the son of Frankel, who began his career overseas.
He is by the Smart Strike mare Crown Queen, who is the half-sister of Hall of Famer Royal Delta and a grade 1 winner.