Following a fifth-place finish in a first-level turf
allowance on Thursday at Belmont Park,
Shortleaf Stable’s New Madrid will skip the Belmont Stakes, trainer Tim
Ice said Friday morning.
“He won’t run in the Belmont,”
Ice said. “He needed to show me more yesterday than he did. The
Arkansas Derby [on April 10] wasn’t so long ago that I think he needed the race
or anything. He’ll run back in a dirt allowance race and we’ll see from
there.”
New Madrid,
a son of Rock Hard Ten, finished sixth in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby a month
after breaking his maiden at third asking at Oaklawn Park.