O’Neill: Now Is The Time ‘To Take A Shot’ With Fore Left In Belmont Stakes

Fore Left, originally scheduled to run in Saturday's Woody Stephens on the Belmont Stakes undercard, will now be rerouted to the day's main event, trainer Doug O'Neill told the Daily Racing Form.

The 3-year-old son of Twirling Candy was a part of O'Neill's first-ever Dubai-based string, and won the Group 3 UAE 2,000 Guineas back in February. He had been pointing to the UAE Derby before that race was cancelled due to the global coronavirus pandemic.

At Belmont for several weeks, Fore Left has had two breezes over the main track and has been progressing well off the four-month layoff, O'Neill said. The colt won the listed Tremont Stakes at Belmont Park as a 2-year-old, and is four-for-nine lifetime with earnings over $350,000.

“If we're ever going to take a shot with him, he's telling us that now is the time,” O'Neill told the Daily Racing Form. “He's coming off a real strong performance in Dubai. We really like the one turn, 1 1/8-mile layout and the lack of a lot of speed projected in there.”