By Ben Massam
If patience is the game, you'll be hard pressed to find many as skilled at the practice as Hall of Fame trainer Roger Attfield. After enduring a winter of unsettled Florida weather and a quarantine that essentially kept his runners out of the starting gate for the month of March, Attfield is prepared to once again make his seasonal migration north to Canada by way of Kentucky, beginning with three runners entered on Keeneland's opening day Friday. Among them is RGH Bloodstock and Dan Gale's Shakhimat (Lonhro {Aus})–the latest promising 3-year-old prospect for the eight-time Queen's Plate winning conditioner.
Speaking over the phone Monday, Attfield explained with a laugh that Shakhimat means “checkmate” in Russian, a name fitting for a colt that was last seen notching a decisive 9 3/4-length win over Woodbine's all-weather track in the Nov. 8 Coronation Futurity. The trainer said that he brought Shakhimat down to his Payson Park winter base with the intention of keeping the dark bay fresh for a spring and summer campaign beginning in March, but was steered toward Friday's GIII Transylvania S. after a equine herpes virus scare put the training center on lockdown until late last month.
“I gave him some nice freshening time because I didn't want to get caught up in the bigger stuff down [in Florida],” Attfield said. “It's unfortunate that we were under quarantine for most of March, because I wanted to get a race into him in March and then go to [Turfway Park's Apr. 2 GIII] Spiral. We didn't get that accomplished, so I decided to go to the Transylvania at Keeneland.”
While the inability to follow the original plan is understandably a concern, Attfield believes Shakhimat will perform well over the Keeneland grass Friday, with his ultimate goal being the Canadian Triple Crown in the summer months. According to the trainer, Shakhimat has been training forwardly in recent weeks, with many of his works coming in company with 4-year-old stable star and 2015 Breeders' S. hero Danish Dynaformer (Dynaformer). The pair notably breezed six furlongs in company in 1:12 flat [1/8] over the Payson turf Mar. 26.
“He's been doing very, very well,” the native of England continued. “The owners are Canadian, and the Queen's Plate would be a major thing for him, so we're aiming that way.”
Compared to the once-beaten Shakhimat's relative precocity, William K. Werner's Remembering Mickey (Bernardini) has been a true developmental project. Out of a dam who is a half-sister to Attfield's 2011 GI Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf winner Perfect Shirl (Perfect Soul {Ire}) and multiple graded stakes winner Lady Shakespeare (Theatrical {Ire}), the bay broke through in his fifth career start with a much-improved half-length graduation over the Gulfstream Park turf Saturday after encountering some hard luck earlier in his career.
“I bought him out of the 2-year-old in training sale at Ocala [in March for $150,000], and he was quite backward,” Attfield acknowledged. “We had some 2-year-old shin issues with him and baby problems, so he didn't start until later on. We just gave him plenty of time, and his winter got messed up because of the weather down here. We entered, and it came off the grass, and I gave him one go where I left him in [on dirt], and that was a disaster. The next time, we got him in and we came out. I must have entered him six times.”
Now that Remembering Mickey has cleared the maiden condition, Attfield said he intends to run the colt back in a second-level allowance at Keeneland scheduled for Apr. 29.
Danish Dynaformer could also make an appearance over the Keeneland lawn one week earlier in the GII Dixiana Elkhorn S. going 12 furlongs–a race that the 76-year-old trainer has won four times previously. The Charles Fipke homebred captured last year's Queen's Plate Trial and ran second behind Shaman Ghost (Ghostzapper) in the Queen's Plate prior to his greatest triumph in the Breeders' S. last August. Away for an extended rest since a seventh-place run in the GI Canadian International Oct. 18, Attfield noted that he believes Danish Dynaformer can return to the highest level with more maturity this year.
“He's been doing exceptionally well,” the conditioner remarked. “He might go right into the Elkhorn at the end of the meet, and that's always been a pretty good race for me. Or, I might find an allowance race for him and aim at a race at Churchill in May. I haven't quite made up my mind yet, but he's got a long summer ahead of him with some major races in the east that he's capable of running in.”
As for Friday, Attfield also has a rather unusual entrant in 'TDN Rising Star' Tap it Rich (Tapit), unraced since a runner-up finish for trainer Bob Baffert behind fellow 'Rising Star' and eventual GI Breeders' Cup Classic winner Bayern (Offlee Wild) in a Santa Anita allowance race in February 2014. The gray–who may well be the greatest test of Attfield's patience–became known for his quirks after racing erratically when fifth in the 2013 GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile. Although he has had ample time to become acquainted with Tap it Rich since the horse was transferred to his care, Attfield admitted that he does not know what to expect from him in Friday's nine-panel turf test.
“He's been a very difficult horse to train,” commented Attfield. “He's quite unpredictable, really.”
Despite the uncertainty surrounding Tap it Rich, the position Attfield finds himself in after the first quarter of 2016 is a familiar one: heading north with a stable full of fresh and improving horses.
“I've [also] got a number of 3-year-olds that didn't show a whole lot at two or didn't start at two, horses that I gave some time to develop, and I think they could turn out to be nice horses,” concluded Attfield, who has won 108 graded stakes races in his career. “It's going to be interesting and exciting in the next few months to see how it all unwinds.”
Not a subscriber? Click here to sign up for the daily PDF or alerts.
