Don Alberto Stable homebred Forza Di Oro made a splash in a Saratoga allowance race last week, coming off an eight-month layoff to win by three lengths while geared down at the wire. Trainer Bill Mott plans to point the lightly-raced 4-year-old son of Speightstown to the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup on Sept. 4 at the Spa, according to the Thoroughbred Daily News.
The Jockey Club Gold Cup is a “Win and You're In” race for the Breeders' Cup Classic this fall at Del Mar.
The colt has only started six times in his career. Forza Di Oro broke his maiden in his second start as a juvenile, then ran a disappointing eighth in the G2 Remsen. Mott brought him back off a 10-month layoff to win an allowance race and the G3 Discovery last fall, the latter with a 101 Beyer figure, but the colt went back to the sidelines for another eight months.
Forza Di Oro's allowance win was his fourth from six starts, and improved his earnings to $209,375.
“Bill is a Hall of Famer,” Don Alberto stable manager Matt Hogan told the TDN. “This is what he does. He's phenomenal at that. A big horse like this, as Bill said, he's been a little bit of a project, but any little setback is obviously poorly timed. Giving him the time off and bringing him back this year, he just seemed a big, happy, fresh, sound animal that was ready to get out there and rock and roll when we put him back under tack here at the farm. To bring a horse off such a long layoff– yet again to such an impressive performance–just goes to show the capabilities of Bill and his team.”
Out of the graded stakes-placed Hard Spun mare Filare l'Oro, Forza Di Oro is a half-brother to multiple graded stakes winner Silver Dust from the family of Grade 1 winners Stop Traffic and Cross Traffic.
Read more at the Thoroughbred Daily News.
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