Mo Tom will go in Lecomte for Amoss

Tom Amoss said he would wait until after Harlan Punch worked Thursday morning to decide whether to run him or another 3-year-old he trains, Mo Tom, in the Jan. 16 Lecomte Stakes, but when rain came during Thursday training and Amoss pushed back Harlan Punch’s work to another day, there was no decision left to make: It’s Mo Tom for the Lecomte.

Mo Tom is one of nine 3-year-olds expected to be entered Friday in the Grade 3, $200,000 Lecomte, a one-mile-70-yard dirt race that serves as the first local stepping-stone to the $1 million Louisiana Derby on March 26. Besides Mo Tom, the entrants – according to the Fair Grounds racing office as of Thursday – are expected to include Destin, Dolphus, Fish Trappe Road, Noble Thought, Pinnacle Peak, Tarpon Bay Road, Tom’s Ready, and Z Royal.

Plans for Harlan Punch, third last out in the $1 million Delta Jackpot, are “up in the air,” said Amoss, who plans to work Harlan Punch in the next couple of days, weather permitting. Mo Tom is the more advanced horse between the two, though Amoss cautioned that Mo Tom, still some four months from actually being 3 years old, “is not a finished horse.”

“He’s a May foal, and he acts likes that mentally and physically,” Amoss said. “We think his best races still are ahead of him.”

Mo Tom has done pretty well so far. He won his debut at Ellis Park last summer, finished third in a Keeneland sprint allowance, won the Street Sense, a one-turn-mile stakes third out at Churchill, and rallied from 12th in the Churchill slop to finish third, beaten a head for second by the highly regarded Mor Spirit, in the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes, his first two-turn start. Mo Tom has worked three times at Fair Grounds, including a bullet five-furlong drill in 1:00 in company last Monday, and will have one more work for the Lecomte next week.