Contender Status
Trainer Dallas Stewart was understandably delighted with Macho Again's second place finish to Big Brown in the Preakness Stakes (G1), but will let the horse tell him if the Belmont Stakes (G1) is next.
"I thought [Macho Again's Belmont] was excellent," Stewart said. "He proved a lot to everybody, me included, that he can go two turns. He's got a good feel for racing. He's going to win some nice races, we hope. He ran well.
"We really haven't given [the Belmont] a hard thought yet.
"You've got to make sure everything is right with the horse and the horse is doing good. And our horse ran back in three weeks. We'll get him back on the track and see how he does."
Macho Again is currently jogging at Churchill Downs and, if everything goes well, is scheduled to ship to Belmont Park on June 3.
"It's been a while, but it's great to have a good three-year-old," Stewart said. "It's a shame we didn't get going earlier. We were thinking he was a Louisiana Derby [G3] type horse, but we just got set back with him. But it's all working out now. He needed a little time to mature. It would have been nice to have a Kentucky Derby horse, but it doesn't always happen. That's why the Derby is the Derby."
May 30 - Four furlongs breezing in :48.20 at Churchill Downs, track fast. 11th best of 55 workouts at the distance.
Belmont Stakes (G1) on June 7 at Belmont Park
Terry Finley, president and founder of West Coast Thoroughbreds, on Macho Again's second place finish to Big Brown in the Preakness Stakes (G1):
"I wasn’t that surprised. I felt really, really good about his chances all Preakness day. I felt that if the big horse [Big Brown] ran like he did, we couldn’t beat him, we could be second because it was an evenly matched group after him. And that’s how it turned out.”