To Honor and Serve represents Bernardini with class in Remsen

Much was expected of Bernardini’s son To Honor and Serve and he delivered on Saturday at Aqueduct, winning the G2 Remsen Stakes with a wire-to-wire performance that could make him a finalist for year-end honors. Despite solid fractions, when jockey Johnny Velazquez asked him at the top of the stretch, he went on to win by two lengths with his ears pricked.

The colt who Bill Mott has called “the best two-year-old Kentucky Derby prospect I have ever trained” exhibited his natural speed early, but rated well and carried it the one and one-eighth miles, and was willing to dig deeper than in previous to do so. To Honor and Serve, who has already won the G2 Nashua Stakes, now has won three of his four starts for owner Live Oak Plantation.

Bred by Twin Creeks Farm, Larry Byer, and Rancho San Miguel, To Honor and Serve is the first foal to race out of the Stakes winner Pilfer, by Deputy Minister, who is a half-sister to multiple Graded Stakes winner India.

Bernardini has sired 11 winners so far. To Honor and Serve is one of four Group or Graded winners from Bernardini’s first crop, including G1 winners A Z Warrior and Biondetti, and G3 winner/G1-placed Theyskens’ Theory. He is the only first-year sire ever represented by both a G1 winner on dirt and turf.

Bernardini will stand for $75,000 in 2011.