KeepAliveFailure handler testing - how?

Question

Hi, I've got a client application that posts requests to another company's web service.
I'm getting the occasional KeepAliveFailure exception and I've implemented code to specifically catch these and just try resending the request again.

However, I'm finding it very hard to test, as these exceptions really are the exception rather than the rule!
How would you test code to fix a very intermittent issue? Can I somehow cause this to occur from my end, rather than hoping the server closes the connection?

Any advice would be very much appreciated!

Thanks,
Matt