Shackleford Wins the Preakness Stakes

Shackleford has just crushed all hopes of a Triple Crown winner and racing immortality by defeating Animal Kingdom in the Preakness Stakes.

Shackleford overcame all the bad signs you don’t want to see in a horse before a race—being uncomfortable before the post parade and being washed up before entering the gate—along with a faster pace in the Preakness, which was just one-fifth of a second slower than the fastest Preakness, to hold on by half a length.

At the start, as expected, Flashpoint had a great break and went right to the front, followed closely by Shackleford, while Animal Kingdom was 13th, beating only Dialed In, who followed him step by step.

In the backstretch, Jesus Castañon, Shackleford’s jockey, got him to relax for the second quarter, while Animal Kingdom was still trailing in 13th but starting his run with Dialed In following him closely.

During the last turn, Shackleford started putting Flashpoint behind while Astrology and Dance City started to take their shots at the leader—Animal Kingdom was bidding for space, which might as well have cost him the race.

On the stretch, Shackleford was being challenged by Astrology and Animal Kingdom started his big run, and at the eighth pole, you could even sense he was going to get the win, but Shackleford, with a strong ride by Castañon, held on gamely to win by half a length, giving his connections their first Triple Crown win.

Shackleford final time was 1:56.47 and returned to its followers $27.20 to win, $10.20 in place and $6.80 to show, Animal Kingdom returned $4.20 in place and $3.60 to show while third-place finisher Astrology returned $8.00 to show.

Now, on to Belmont for the third leg of the Triple Crown, where it still remains to be seen if we will get to see a rematch between Shackleford and Animal Kingdom to see who could win two out of three.

If you go by what the trainers said and their beliefs, neither one of them will run, since Shackleford has run three straight tough races and Romans said after the Derby that maybe the mile-and-a-quarter was stretching him just a bit, and by seeing how he was tiring at the end, two-and-a-half furlongs more would be too much to ask.

As for Animal Kingdom, Motion is reluctant to return horses so soon, and he returned him to Preakness maybe because history forces you to, so it will be my guess at this time to say they would both be out of the Belmont in three weeks.

The only sure runner is Derby second-place finisher Nehro, but we would surely like to see Shackleford, Animal Kingdom, Astrology and Dialed In on the Belmont shooting for history.