Pass the Hat edges Capitol Hill in Poker Stakes exacta for Bill Mott

Bill Mott did more than win the Poker Stakes again at Saratoga. He turned the $300,000 Grade 3 mile on the inner turf into a two-horse calling card, with Pass the Hat edging stablemate Capitol Hill by a nose in a finish that said as much about barn depth as it did about the race itself.

Pass the Hat, a chestnut gelding by Collected out of Veronique by Mizzen Mast, pressed the pace over a firm course and finished the job in 1:32.92, holding off Capitol Hill after a showery afternoon left the track labeled firm. The Poker was Race 4 on the June 7 card, went off at 1:47 p.m. Eastern, and was restricted to four-year-olds and up. Only five horses started after scratches and main-track-only scratches thinned the field, which made the tactical complexion even more important and left Mott with the two runners who controlled the outcome.

That exacta mattered because Capitol Hill was no sacrificial pace piece. He was there to win, and he made Pass the Hat earn every inch. In a race with an overloaded reputation on paper, the stablemates separated themselves from the rest, with heavily favored Zulu Kingdom back in third after entering as a multiple graded-stakes winner and the April 10 Mile Stakes winner at Keeneland. The final order sharpened the picture for the turf division: Pass the Hat looked the more dangerous player going forward, not because he was flashier, but because he handled the trip, sustained his run, and outfinished a live stablemate in a race that usually rewards positioning and finishing punch in equal measure.

For Mott, the result was his fifth victory in the Poker Stakes, another sign that Saratoga’s inner turf still tends to reward his kind of horse. The win also carried more weight because it came on the final day of the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival, with the Belmont itself having returned to Saratoga Race Course a day earlier. Pass the Hat paid $22.78 to win, $14.40 to place and $3.58 to show, while the 5-4 exacta returned $80.89 from a $455,937 win-place-show pool. With a $165,000 first-place share from the guaranteed purse, the Horseman’s answer was simple: Mott had the right pair, and Pass the Hat proved he is the one to watch next.