by Frank Angst

Champion steeplechaser Good Night Shirt will try to win the Iroquois Hurdle Stakes for a second straight time when he faces six opponents in the three-mile test on Saturday at Percy Warner Park in Nashville, Tennessee.

Last year, Good Night Shirt secured the biggest win of his career when he registered a 5 1/4-length score over Sur La Tete in the Iroquois, a race that saw three-time champion McDynamo finish fourth. The Concern gelding then won the Lonesome Glory Hurdle Stakes at Belmont Park and the Marion du Pont Scott Colonial Cup Hurdle Stakes at Camden on his way to championship honors.

Good Night Shirt opened this season with a clear victory in the Irongate Capital/W Hotel Georgia Cup Hurdle Stakes on April 12. The seven-year-old will try to earn the sixth steeplechase stakes win of his career in Saturday’s $150,000 race.

The Iroquois also has attracted eight-year-old mare Sweet Shani (NZ), who enters off a second-place finish in the Royal Chase for the Sport of Kings Stakes, where she was just edged for the win by Sovereign Duty. The third-place finisher from that April 17 race at Keeneland Race Course, Best Attack, also is entered.

The field also includes last year’s Carolina First Carolina Cup Hurdle Stakes winner Orison, 2006 Foxbrook Supreme Hurdle Stakes winner Kilbride Rd, 2007 Georgia Cup runner-up Bow Strada (GB), and Fra Diavolo (Arg).

Frank Angst is senior staff writer of Thoroughbred Times