Mean Season nears another comeback

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The freakishly fast but frequently fragile Mean Season is nearing a return to the races.

Mean Season, a son of Henny Hughes entering his 6-year-old season, blitzed four furlongs in 46.69 seconds Sunday over the training track at Belmont Park, his first local work after five breezes at the Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland.

Mean Season has made only four starts, winning three of them, including two allowance races over the inner track during the winter of 2013-14. He was vanned off after winning a second-level allowance race by 7 1/2 lengths March 1, 2014. He was diagnosed with a leg fracture that sidelined him for the remainder of the year.

He returned in the Grade 3 Gulfstream Park Sprint in February, finished last, and again was vanned off.

While working his way toward another comeback during the summer, he suffered from a bout of colic and underwent surgery, according to Leana Willaford, assistant for trainer Bill Mott.

Though nothing has been picked out, the Grade 3, $150,000 Toboggan, a six-furlong race here Jan. 18, could make sense for Mean Season.