Shotski Expected to Miss Remainder of Sophomore Season

Grade 2 winner Shotski is expected to miss the rest of his sophomore season with minor bone bruising but will be pointed to a 4-year-old campaign in 2021.

A maiden winner at Laurel Park in his second start last fall, the son of Blame  won the Remsen Stakes (G2) at Aqueduct Racetrack in his juvenile finale. He returned to New York to run second in the Feb. 1 Withers Stakes (G3) and in his most recent start was fourth in the Feb. 29 Fasig-Tipton Fountain of Youth Stakes (G2) at Gulfstream Park for Gary Barber, Wachtel Stable, Pantofel Stable, and Howling Pigeon Farms. 

Trainer Jerry O'Dwyer took Shotski to Dubai to take part in the March 28 UAE Derby (G2), but the race was canceled five days out because of COVID-19.

"When he came back from Dubai, we gave him a rest and then we had him back going, and I was half-thinking of running him at Oaklawn, and then he just came up a little bit sore after a couple of weeks off," O'Dwyer said. "Obviously, he's a good horse, so we decided to take a step back and see what's going on. He got a little bit better the following day but not enough, so we sent him for a bone scan and he had some bruising all around."

Shotski is currently with trainer Bruce Jackson at the Fair Hill Equine Therapy Center on the grounds of the Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md., where O'Dwyer went to visit his stable star this week.

"He looks fantastic. I don't know that there's ever a good time, but he would have never made the (Kentucky) Derby now anyway. The owners have been wonderful," O'Dwyer said. "He'll get turned out—he just can't have any hard training. He's up in a great place. Once the time comes, we'll be able to start him back on the water treadmill and things like that and get him back going."

Shotski, who finished fourth in the Street Sense Stakes as a 2-year-old, gave O'Dwyer the first graded stakes victory of his career in the Remsen. A $25,000 yearling purchase by King's Equine from Taylor Made Sales Agency's consignment to the 2018 edition of The October Sale, Fasig-Tipton's Kentucky fall yearling sale, he has earned $236,222 from six starts.

"It's disappointing, but I'm happy we're doing the right thing by him. Hopefully, we'll get a start into him before the end of the year, but if not, we'll have a nice 4-year-old," O'Dwyer said. "He's taken us on a hell of a ride already. It's amazing—the good ones, they go through things. That must have been bugging him without us even knowing. Once we backed off him, it came to a head, and we said, 'This is something we need to address,' and we did. There's going to be many more good days out of him. We'll just take our time with him and get him back in good health and go from there."