Flintshire to Skip BC Turf, Will Run in Japan
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Juddmonte Farms' brilliant homebred Flintshire will pass up a chance to run in the Oct. 31 Longines Breeders' Cup Turf (gr. IT)—a race in which he was second last year to eventual champion Main Sequence—and will target the Nov. 29 Japan Cup (Jpn-I) instead.
Flintshire is going to skip the @BreedersCup & instead point toward the G1 Japan Cup in association with #Longines. pic.twitter.com/JcKBu0z4yb
— Longines WBRR (@worldsbesthorse) October 17, 2015
The 5-year-old son of Dansili could not run in both because he has not been vaccinated for West Nile Virus. According to Japan quarantine rules, a European horse that has run in the United Stakes within 60 days of shipping to Japan has to either have been vaccinated or been in Europe a minimum of two weeks before shipping. Japan Cup contenders have to be in Japan by Nov. 19, according to the Japan Racing Association.
MITCHELL: Juddmonte Weighs Turf or Japan for Flintshire
Flintshire has not finished off the board in six starts this year in England, France, the U.S., and the United Arab Emirates. An impressive victory Aug. 29 in the Sword Dancer Stakes (gr. IT) at Saratoga Race Course gave him his first stakes win of the year and automatically qualified him for the Turf through the Breeders' Cup Challenge "Win, and You're In" program.
Flintshire posted seconds this year in the Dubai Sheema Classic Presented by Longines (UAE-I); the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud (Fr-I), a race he won in 2013; and most recently the Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (Fr-I). He also ran third in the Investec Coronation Cup (Eng-I). For his career to date, Flintshire has won five times and finished second or third 10 times from18 starts while amassing $7,121,640 in earnings.
This story will be updated.