Bet Seattle seeks Honor the Hero repeat

SHAKOPEE, Minn. – Bet Seattle, winner of the Honor the Hero Stakes last year, will take on 2013 runner-up El Seventyseven and six others on Memorial Day at Canterbury Park in this year’s $75,000 renewal, which will be contested at five furlongs on turf.

Bet Seattle has sandwiched two allowance wins this season around a troubled trip in the Colonel Power Stakes at Fair Grounds. With good tracking speed, Bet Seattle will try and get first jump on a trio of front-runners.

Castletown, will be making his turf debut Monday. Trained by Robertino Diodoro, Castletown has run four times on synthetic surfaces at Del Mar and Hollywood Park and never missed the board. He wired an allowance field at Turf Paradise last out and worked a four-furlong bullet on May 16 in his lone Canterbury work.

Also trying turf for the first time is Arizona stakes winner Rockin Home. Second last out in the Grand Canyon Handicap at Turf Paradise, Rockin Home will have to contend with Castletown on the early lead.

The third front-runner, Satan’s Mistress, is coming off a fourth-place finish in the Safari Queen Stakes at Gulfstream, where he set the fractions into the stretch before weakening.

Tell All You Know followed up a third-place finish in the Turf Dash Stakes at Tampa Bay with a win in Keeneland allowance. Likely coming from off the pace, Tell All You Know will have to contend with favorite Bet Seattle when he takes aim at the front-runners in the final stages.

Countercyclical could not overcome a terrible start in his turf debut at Keeneland on April 25 but has shown flashes of speed in his dirt efforts.

The oft-claimed Rhetorical steps into stakes company for the first time, while last year’s runner-up, El Seventyseven, makes his 2014 debut.