CLICK ON IMAGE ABOVE FOR LARGER VIEW
This Fleet Is Due
16.1 H., 1998
Liver Chestnut Thoroughbred Stallion
SIRE/DAM: Devil His Due—Northern Fleet, by Afleet
Stakes-placed winner of $351,090

Never worse than third in his first 8 starts (at Belmont, Saratoga, Gulfstream Park, Keeneland), including two allowance wins, This Fleet Is Due then placed second in the $100,000 Long Branch Breeders’ Cup (to Burning Roma), and just missed in the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational H by mere 1½ lengths (finishing fourth to Point Given, Touch Tone, Burning Roma). With 6 wins in 23 lifetime starts, he also finished fourth in the Grade 1 Oaklawn H.

By leading sire DEVIL HIS DUE, he is out of a winning daughter of champion AFLEET. This Fleet Is Due is half-brother to G3 winner CATBOAT ($221,659, Arlington Breeders’ Cup Oaks-G3, etc.) and multiple stakes-placed Betty Garr, from the family of multiple track record-setter NORTHERN WOLF.

• !00% Conception Rate in 2007
• Test crop foals arrive in 2008

Performance
While competing on the tough circuit that runs from upstate New York to Florida, This Fleet Is Due was sent to the post 23 times, winning six races and finishing second or third in 10 others, to earn $351,090.

In his first 15 starts, he finished in the top three 13 times (and was never worse than fourth). Trainer Bill Mott sent out the chestnut twice at Saratoga at 2 in maiden special weight company, and watched him just miss twice – when second, by a nose, to Evening Attire and just failing to hold off Dollar Bill to be defeated by a head.

In his first start at 3, This Fleet Is Due pulled away to a two and three-quarter-length victory in a seven furlong maiden special weight at Gulfstream Park, completing the distance in 1:22.20.

This Fleet Is Due’s stakes debut found him finishing second, to Burning Roma, in Monmouth Park’s Long Branch Breeders’ Cup Stakes, a prep for the track’s signature event, the Haskell Invitational Handicap-G1. Facing Preakness/Belmont Stakes winner Point Given, This Fleet Is Due finished a fast-closing fourth, with only a little over a length separating him from the future Horse of the Year, with Touch Tone and Burning Roma rounding out the top three. The following spring, This Fleet Is Due was also fourth in the Grade 1 Oaklawn Handicap behind Kudos, Bowman’s Band and Dollar Bill.

This Fleet Is Due’s victories included back-to-back allowance scores at 3 while facing older runners at Belmont Park, going seven furlongs and one mile, the latter by a winning margin of more than five lengths. He scored a four and a quarter-length allowance victory going a mile and a sixteenth at Belmont while defeating, among others, Snake Mountain, to record a 110 Beyer speed figure. The final start of his career saw him in the winner’s circle following a mile and 70-yard allowance at Delaware Park. (Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred)