Awesome Slew seeks class relief in salty allowance

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Awesome Slew won a first-level allowance race at Monmouth Park on May 21, 2016. Since then, he’s competed in 17 consecutive stakes races, winning a trio of Grade 3 events.

Following an eighth-place finish in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap last month, Awesome Slew will run in a stakes-caliber allowance race Saturday at Saratoga.

“It’s a lot easier than what he’s been running in,” trainer Mark Casse said.

After Awesome Slew was soundly defeated in the Met Mile for a second consecutive year, Casse has deduced that Awesome Slew simply doesn’t like Belmont Park.

Casse said that should Awesome Slew run well Saturday, he would consider returning him to stakes company in the Grade 1 Forego on Aug. 25. Awesome Slew ran second to Drefong in last year’s Forego.

The horse to beat in Saturday’s allowance could be Behavioral Bias, a 4-year-old gelding by Shackleford who won a maiden race here last summer by three lengths for trainer Al Stall.

He has three seconds in four starts this year, including a half-length loss to McCraken on Derby Day at Churchill Downs. Most recently, he finished second in a two-turn allowance at Churchill.

Saturday, Behavioral Bias will run with blinkers on for the first time.

“He’s waited before when he makes the lead,” Stall said. “He wants to cock his head a little bit and glance around at things, and a couple of riders have said something to me also.”

Rally Cry, who won the Alydar Stakes here by 8 3/4 lengths last August, makes his first start since running sixth in last October’s Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup.