It took To Honor and Serve a while to fulfill the promise he showed as a 2-year-old, but the son of Bernardini has made up for lost time. He closed out his 3-year-old campaign winning three of his last four starts, including the Pennsylvania Derby and Cigar Mile, then made a successful return at 4 with a runaway score in the Westchester four weeks ago.

Anyone who saw that race has to place To Honor and Serve, who carries 120 pounds in today’s 119th running of the Grade 1, $750,000 Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont Park, high on the list of the nation’s top older horses. You also have to wonder why he is getting a pound from Caleb’s Posse and Jackson Bend, both assigned 121.

“He’s had two good works (five-furlong breezes in :59 and 1:00 since the Westchester),” trainer Bill Mott said. “It looks like a good race. Nice horses, without a doubt.”

In addition to Jackson Bend and Caleb’s Posse — who finished 1-2, noses apart, in the seven-furlong Carter Handicap — To Honor and Serve faces last year’s Preakness winner, Shackleford, who was third in the Carter and won the Churchill Downs Stakes in his last start. He totes 119 pounds.

Caixa Eletronica (117), winner of the Charles Town Classic, and the New York-bred Saginaw (115), who has won five in a row, round out the field.

In today’s two other Grade 1 stakes at Belmont — which, like the Met Mile, drew small but select fields of six horses each — Awesome Maria and It’s Tricky, two of the nation’s top older fillies and mares, square off in the $400,000 Ogden Phipps Handicap at 1 1/16 miles, while Bob Baffert’s Contested heads a mixed bunch of 3-year-old fillies going a mile in the $300,000 Acorn.