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Awesome Slew seeks first Grade 1 win in Runhappy Met Mile

by NYRA Press Office

Live Oak Plantation's multiple Grade 3 winner Awesome Slew returns to Belmont Park for Saturday's $1.2 million Runhappy Metropolitan Handicap with another chance to fill what trainer Mark Casse said is the only blank spot on the 5-year-old's resume - a Grade 1 victory.

A Florida-bred son and grandson of two-time Grade 1 winners Awesome Again and Seeking the Gold, Awesome Slew is the only one of 11 graded-stakes winners entered for the 125th Met Mile to have run in last year's race, finishing fourth.

As he did in 2017, Awesome Slew drew the far outside post for the Met Mile, though one spot closer than last year. He has raced twice this year, both at seven furlongs, finishing second as the favorite to Army Mule in the Grade 1 Carter Handicap April 7 at Aqueduct in his first start in five months.

Awesome Slew followed up to be third by a neck in the Grade 2 Churchill Downs May 5 on the Kentucky Derby undercard, contested over a sloppy, sealed track. The two horses that finished in front of him, Limousine Liberal and Warrior's Club, both return in the Met Mile.

"It's an extremely tough race but that's why they're Grade 1s, right?" Casse said. "He's doing extremely well. I thought his first race back of the year, we kind of felt like he was training better than ever. Obviously, he ran into a very good horse in Army Mule. I thought he ran well, had a wide trip.

"He came back and, you know what, I was a little disappointed. I thought he had every shot to win the Churchill Downs, but he didn't," he added. "The racetrack was very, very difficult that day. I don't know whether that was a factor or not; I'm hoping it was. It looks like there's a fair amount of speed in the Met Mile, and I like our post position, so we'll see what happens."

Though winless in two career tries at Belmont, including a second to probable Met Mile favorite Mind Your Biscuits in the 2017 Grade 2 Belmont Sprint Championship, Awesome Slew has been successful going one mile, winning the Grade 3 Ack Ack last fall at Churchill Downs. Also last year, he was second in the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Handicap and third in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile.

Awesome Slew also owns a win at 1 1/16 miles, going all the way on the lead to beat 13 rivals in the Grade 3 Smarty Jones in 2016.

"In the last race he made the lead with about a sixteenth of a mile to go and that horse beat him in the stretch. It was a ding-dong battle, really, down to the wire," Casse said. "I know that the mile is not a problem for him. He's won up to a mile and a sixteenth already, against a pretty good field. The mile's not going to hurt his feelings at all."

A member of the Canadian Racing Hall of Fame and a finalist for the second straight year in 2018 for enshrinement in the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame, Casse won the Met Mile in 2001 with another Florida-bred, Exciting Story.

"[A Met Mile win] would mean everything. This horse, he's a beautiful horse. He's got a good pedigree. He's good looking, has a great mind. He's got the entire package. The one thing he's lacking right now is a Grade 1 win," Casse said. "The Grade 1 would be huge, but the Met Mile Grade 1 is probably one of the most important races that a stallion prospect could win, and it would just elevate him to another level as a stallion prospect if he were able to win it."