To Honor and Serve ready for the Kelso Handicap ahead of the Breeders’ Cup Classic
Live Oak Plantation’s To Honor and Serve is pointed toward the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita Park on 3 November, 2012, and trainer Bill Mott is using the Belmont Park meet race as prep races for his runners participating in the Breeders’ Cup.
To Honor and Serve is pointed toward the Grade 2, $400,000 Kelso Handicap, run over a distance of a mile at Belmont Park on 29 September, 2012.
The 4-year-old Bernardini colt, To Honor and Serve will be expecting to trump his Grade 1 Met Mile tormentor, Shackleford, who will be running in the Kelso Handicap.
According to Mott, To Honor and Serve has been training very well, and the plan was to run in the Woodward and after four weeks in the Kelso, which will give the colt five weeks to rest and train for the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Out of Deputy Minister mare Pilfer, To Honor and Serve is exiting victory in the Grade 1 Woodward Stakes at Saratoga, where he kept Mucho Macho Man adrift at second and Cease in third, while he covered the 1 1/8 mile distance in 1 minute and 48.57 seconds.
Bill Mott expected big things off To Honor and Serve this year, especially when the colt downed the Grade 3 Westchester Stakes to kick start his 2012 season, but his seasonal debut victory followed by defeats in the Met Mile and the Grade 2 Suburban Handicap.
"When he won so easily first time out I thought he couldn't be doing better going into Met Mile," Mott said. "He didn't run a bad race. On the turn, he was unable to run when he needed to run to be competitive. In the Suburban, it was 97 degrees and the heat really affected him and he ran a lacklustre race. Because of that, we decided to skip the Whitney and give extra time until Labour Day weekend when he won the Woodward.”
To Honor and Serve last year participated in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs, and finished a dismal seventh in a quality field.
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