Alicia Wincze Hughes on horse racing

Newly-minted Preakness Stakes winner Shackleford was on a plane headed back to Kentucky Sunday morning less than 24 hours after upsetting Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom to take the middle jewel of the Triple Crown.

Despite getting only about an hour’s worth of sleep due to some well deserved post-race celebrating, winning trainer Dale Romans dutifully met with the media at the Pimlico stakes barn even stopping off at Starbucks to bring everyone some  much needed caffeine. The Louisville native was still trying to soak in the full impact of saddling his first winner in a Triple Crown race but did say there is a better than average chance Shackleford would head to Belmont Stakes as long as he bounces out of his latest effort in good order.

“I thought about going on to Belmont right away but I went ahead and sent him back to Kentucky so I could get him with his regular team, go over him, watch him train a couple days then make a decision,”  Romans said. “If he trains like he did coming out of the Derby, I don’t know why we would pass. The Belmont is really a speed horse’s race. I think it’s better than 50-50 (that he goes to the Belmont). The way he looked last night, the way he was feeling and the way he ate up this morning, hopefully it’s better than 50-50.”

Romans said he hoped Animal Kingdom would also be in the gate for the Belmont as racing could use a good old fashioned rivalry right now. Barry Irwin, CEO of Team Valor International, which owns Animal Kingdom, was less committal about going on to the 1 1/2 miles test Sunday morning saying he and trainer Graham Motion would likely wait 10 days to two weeks before making that decision.

“The horse is tired. The race took something out of him. That was a hard race he had and he didn’t totally eat up,” Irwin said. “But he jogged well and he is sound. That is probably the toughest race he’ll ever have in his life. I don’t think he could have run better under the circumstances. Like Graham said, if it wasn’t the Triple Crown we’d be thrilled to death. But it’s tough to come that close and not win especially when your horse runs that hard.

“We’re going to strongly consider the Belmont,” Irwin continued. “But we’re going to let the horse tell us how he’s doing.”