Multiple grade I winner Shackleford   will not run in the $500,000 Forego Stakes (gr. I) at Saratoga Race Course Sept. 1, trainer Dale Romans said the morning of the race.

"He's fine, he's just got a little cough," said Romans, adding the 4-year-old son of Forestry   failed to clean up his feed tub that morning and had been coughing last week as well. 

“We’re going to play it safe,” he said.

Shackleford, 2-1 favorite on the morning line for the seven-furlong Forego, will instead return to Romans' home base at Churchill Downs. The chestnut colt will train there in preparation for the Sept. 29 Kelso Stakes (gr. II) at Belmont Park. 

"I'l get him ready and bring him back for that," Romans said.

Shackleford, owned by Michael Lauffer, W.D. Cubbedge, and Phillips Racing Partnership, was eighth last time out as the odds-on favorite in the Aug. 5 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap (gr. I) over a sloppy Saratoga track. He came into that race off back-to-back wins in the May 5 Churchill Downs Stakes (gr. II) and the May 28 Metropolitan Handicap (gr. I).

Last year the chestnut colt won the Preakness Stakes (gr. I) and closed out the season second to Caleb's Posse   in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile (gr. I). 

Bred in Kentucky by Lauffer and Cubbedge out of the Unbridled mare Oatsee, he has earnings of $2,744,047 in 17 starts with a 5-4-1 record.