Over the past several months, Sandman has taken a growing social media fanbase on a thrill ride stopping at some of horse racing’s biggest events including the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes.

Now, the gorgeous gray viral sensation, part-owned by Gen Z content creator Griffin Johnson, is changing up his game and trying a new challenge. On Saturday, Sandman, who has already won the prestigious Arkansas Derby on dirt, will try to win a $3.5 million race on turf. This race, the DK Horse Nashville Derby Invitational, will be held at Kentucky Downs, a track on the Kentucky-Tennessee state line that holds a brief race meet in early fall and does not have a dirt track, only a turf course.

Can Sandman pull off the switch? It’s not uncommon for horse owners and trainers to move their runners from dirt to turf – or vice versa – and there are many reasons to try it. Sometimes, making a change of racing surface turns an ordinary horse into a Hall of Fame legend. It happened back in the mid-1990s with owner Allen Paulson and trainer Bill Mott (who trains recent Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty) and their horse Cigar.

Cigar started his career on dirt but switched to turf for 11 straight starts with modest success before Paulson and Mott decided to move him back to dirt in late 1994. The result? Cigar won 16 races in a row and became a national sensation over the next two years, his streak coming to an end in the 1996 Pacific Classic. Cigar was Horse of the Year in 1995 and ’96 and then a fan favorite during his long retirement at the Kentucky Horse Park. Would we remember him if he had stayed on turf?

Sandman will be making the opposite move – dirt to turf – for his ownership group including Griffin and for Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse. There’s good reason to expect he can handle racing on turf based on his bloodlines. Sandman’s sire (father), Tapit, is known as very versatile in his ability to beget offspring that excel on both dirt and turf. And Sandman’s dam (mother), Distorted Music, raced only on dirt but is a relative of the good turf horse Moon Over Miami, who actually won a stakes race in 2020 on the same Kentucky Downs grass course Sandman will compete on Saturday.

Sandman also has plenty of stamina in his pedigree and has shown it in his dirt races … and he’ll need it, because the Nashville Derby Invitational is 1 5/16 miles long. That distance is a sixteenth of a mile longer than the Kentucky Derby. Another plus is that he’ll be teamed up with jockey Jose Ortiz Saturday, who rode Sandman to victory in the Arkansas Derby and knows how to bring out his best. And trainer Mark Casse has had success in years past with horses that switch surfaces – one of them being War of Will, who a few years ago won the Preakness Stakes on dirt and then later won one of Keeneland’s biggest turf races, the Maker’s Mark Mile.

The good news for Sandman fans is that the Nashville Derby will air nationwide on NBC Saturday afternoon and stream on Peacock, with a post time set for 5:46 p.m. at Kentucky Downs. It’s an exciting next chapter in Sandman’s career that could propel him to compete in even bigger races on turf in the future if he shows enough promise on the new surface. Maybe even the Breeders’ Cup in November!