Fan favorite Mighty Heart will be popular in Seagram Cup betting

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The one-eyed wonder Mighty Heart will take center stage Saturday at Woodbine in the Grade 3, $150,000 Seagram Cup, one of two stakes on the card along with the $150,000 Vice Regent.

Mighty Heart’s 2020 Canadian Horse of the Year campaign included victories in the first two legs of the Canadian Triple Crown, the Queen’s Plate and Prince of Wales Stakes.

Mighty Heart has raced four times this year. In his second start off the bench, in the Blame Stakes at Churchill, he dug in determinedly between rivals to prevail in a three-way win photo, after which he wired the field in the Grade 3 Dominion Day here on the Tapeta. He registered his second straight 96 Beyer Speed Figure when second to favored Sprawl in the Grade 3 West Virginia Governor’s on Aug. 7 at Mountaineer.

Owner-breeder Larry Cordes said Mighty Heart’s popularity hasn’t waned this year.

“He has a lot of followers,” Cordes said. “I get calls from the United States all the time and different media people from so many places. It’s not attention that’s just happening locally. Everybody likes an underdog, and the fact he only has one eye makes it a compelling story.

"I’m proud of him and I’m so happy. If he never wins another race, I’m still so proud. But he has plenty left in him. He’s as sound as sound can be. He’s just an amazing horse.”

Daisuke Fukumoto will break Mighty Heart from post 4 in a five-horse field.

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Special Forces could be the main threat in the 1 1/16-mile event.

Special Forces missed all of 2020 after winning the Grade 2 Autumn here in 2019. When coming off the sidelines in a conditioned allowance on Aug. 19, he finished a clear second to 2019 Belmont Stakes winner Sir Winston, earning a 90 Beyer in the process.

“He’s doing well,” trainer Kevin Attard said. “He breezed on the training track last weekend. Hopefully, he’ll be a little more settled in this race after getting a start.”

◗ The Mark Casse-trained Not So Quiet will try to win the Vice Regent for the second year in a row. The Vice Regent is a five-furlong inner-turf sprint for Ontario-sired stock.

Not So Quiet has run two solid races this year in open company. After ending up fourth in a seven-furlong allowance with no conditions in his comeback on the grass, he was third behind Souper Stonehenge and Pink Lloyd in the Grade 3 Vigil over six furlongs on the Tapeta.

City Boy has finished a lapped-on second in three of his last four outings, including the 2020 Vice Regent. The Mike Keogh trainee is coming off a flat fourth behind Silent Poet in the Highlander, a Grade 1 sprint on the main course that read more like a Grade 2 or 3.