Clement Looking Forward to Met Mile with Tonalist

Though the 2014 Belmont Stakes remains one of the biggest victories in his training career, Christophe Clement isn't sitting back reminiscing about the one-year anniversary of Tonalist's upset of Triple Crown hopeful California Chrome last June.

Instead, Clement is preparing Tonalist for the second start of his 4-year-old campaign in Saturday's Grade 1, $1.25 million NYRA.com Metropolitan Handicap for 3-year-olds and up going one mile on the main track.

"I always think about the future - today or tomorrow - never about yesterday. The biggest thrill of the moment will be Tonalist in the Met Mile and we're going to concentrate on that," Clement said. "It's a fun race. I've always loved that race. It's a great race, because the sprinters stretch out, the mile-and-a-quarter horses come back and you get all the best older horses, plus it's at Belmont Park. I think the Met Mile and the Jockey Club Gold Cup are the best two older horse races, for me, through the year. It's exciting."

Robert S. Evans' Tonalist is the 123-pound co-highweight along with Bayern and Private Zone in the Met Mile, a Breeders' Cup 'Win and You're In' qualifier for the Dirt Mile. Last year, the Tapit colt won the Grade 2 Peter Pan and Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup and placed in both the Grade 2 Jim Dandy and Grade 1 Travers.

He is undefeated in four starts at Belmont Park including his season debut in the one-mile, Grade 3 Westchester Stakes May 2, in which he broke slowly under jockey Joe Bravo but cruised to a 3 ¾-length victory, posting a career-best 111 Beyer Speed Figure.

Clement said Tonalist went a slow 1 ½ miles around Belmont's main track Tuesday morning, and will gallop Wednesday and possibly have a three furlong blowout on Thursday.

"He had another good day," Clement said. "When I trained Gio Ponti, and it sounds pretentious and I don't want to say it in a pretentious way, but when you train a really, really good horse I only worry about his well-being and soundness ... and let the other guys worry about me. He'll take care of it. He's a very good horse."

Sour