Jim And Claire Limited’s Heart of Honor, fifth in Saturday’s Grade 1 Preakness at Pimlico Race Course, arrived at Saratoga Race Course on Wednesday and walked the shedrow Thursday as he begins preparations for the Grade 1, $2 million Belmont Stakes.
The five-day Belmont Stakes Racing Festival will be conducted at Saratoga Race Course from Wednesday, June 4 through Sunday, June 8. The festival will include 27 stakes races with purses totaling $11,275,000, the richest purses and highest number of stakes offered since the launch of the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival in 2014.
Trained by Jamie Osborne, Heart of Honor, who was piloted in the Preakness by Osborne’s daughter Saffie Osborne, was fractious in the gate and off a step slow. The Honor A.P. colt was last-of-9 and 15 lengths off the pace through three-quarters in 1:10.23 and made a wide rally down the lane to finish fifth, defeated 8 3/4-lengths by the victorious Journalism.
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He graduated at second asking at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai where he landed first or second in five outings, including a win in the one-mile Dubai Maritime City on January 10 and a close second in the one-mile Group 3 UAE 2000 Guineas on January 24.
Heart of Honor entered the Preakness from a heartbreaking nose second in the Group 2 UAE Derby in April to Admire Daytona, who was subsequently off-the-board in the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby.
Jamie Osborne said Heart of Honor will work on his gate issues in the weeks leading up to the Belmont.
“He gave himself a massive disadvantage on the day in the gate,” Osborne said of the Preakness effort. “We’ve got a couple of weeks to work on that and try and improve that again. He improved while we were in Dubai and got a lot of practice into the UAE Derby. We did a fair amount of practice into the Preakness and it didn’t work. So, we need to do a bit more practice and get him to relax in the gate and if he goes in there and relaxes, he should jump out all right.”
Osborne said the $172,341 purchase at the 2024 Arqana 2-Year-Old Breeze Up Sale exited the Preakness in good order.
“He’s eating well and done well since the race. He’s pretty bright,” Osborne said. “It’s a nicer preparation for him [heading into the Belmont] than he had going into the Preakness. Most of the weeks before the Preakness he either spent it on an airplane or a lorry.”
Osborne said the team will monitor Heart of Honor’s progress in Saratoga before deciding whether or not to breeze him.
“We wouldn’t be massive fans of breezing him too tight to a race, but we’ll see how he is,” Osborne said.
Heart of Honor is out of the winning Scat Daddy mare Ruby Love. His third dam is the dual graded-stakes placed Wild Rush mare Vous. Heart of Honor has banked $400,919 via a 7-2-4-0 record.
Pletcher Duo Possible for Belmont Stakes
Todd Pletcher, a four-time winner of the Belmont Stakes, could be represented yet again in the final jewel of the Triple Crown as two of his pupils are possible for a start in the 10-furlong test.
Repole Stable’s Grande, who was scratched from the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby due to a foot issue, recently arrived at Saratoga, as did Crudo, winner of the restricted Sir Barton on May 17 at Pimlico for owners Bobby Flay and James Ventura.
“Grande is good and galloped well this morning. We don’t have a schedule picked out just yet for him – we’re not ruling anything out,” Pletcher said. “I spoke to Bobby Flay a little bit and it’s the same thing [for Crudo] – nothing is ruled out.”
Pletcher would look to add to past Belmont Stakes wins with Rags to Riches [2007], Palace Malice [2013], Tapwrit [2017] and Mo Donegal [2022].
The current list of probables for the Belmont Stakes includes: Baeza [John Shirreffs], Heart of Honor [Jamie Osborne], Hill Road [Chad Brown], Journalism [Michael McCarthy], Rodriguez [Bob Baffert], and Sovereignty [Bill Mott].
Journalism, who arrived in New York on Monday evening and is stabled in the Pletcher barn, visited the main track this morning to jog in his first on-track activity at Saratoga.
