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Mike Lauffer, Bill Cubbedge and Phillips Racing Partnership's Shackleford, winner of the 2011 Preakness, is scheduled to be available for inspection at Darby Dan Farm on Friday through Sunday, but Thursday will not be the last day at the track for the chestnut colt. Shackleford is scheduled to return to Churchill Downs at the beginning of next week and could make his final career start in the Grade 1 Clark Handicap on November 23. "We might run him in the Clark," trainer Dale Romans said. "We'll see how he's going into the race, but the plan right now is to go into (the Clark) or the (Grade 1) Cigar Mile (at Aqueduct on November 24). As long as he trains well, he'll have one more race." |
Shackleford, who finished seventh after a stumbling start in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile on Saturday, captured the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap and the Grade 2 Churchill Downs Stakes earlier this year. He has dropped his last three attempts, sandwiching a second in the Grade 2 Kelso Handicap between a disappointing eighth in the Grade 1 A.G. Vanderbilt and the Dirt Mile.
The four-year-old son of Forestry has earned more than $2.8 million from a 19-5-5-1 lifetime mark.
If his connections opt for the 1 1/8-mile Clark, Shackleford would be making his first start past a mile since a seventh in the Grade 1 Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park in February.