BC Turf runner-up Flintshire coming in for Sword Dancer

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The multiple Group 1 winner Flintshire, the runner-up in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita, is returning to the U.S. to compete in the $1 million Sword Dancer Invitational at Saratoga.

Flintshire, owned and bred by Juddmonte Farms and trained by Andre Fabre, is coming off a second-place finish to Treve in the Group 1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud in France in June. He also finished second to Treve in last year’s Arc de Triomphe before shipping to the U.S., where he ran second to Main Sequence in the BC Turf.

“It’s huge to get that type of horse,” said Martin Panza, the New York Racing Association’s senior vice president of racing operations.

Flintshire was scheduled to arrive in New York on Saturday morning. He will do quarantine at Belmont Park before shipping to Saratoga on Sunday night or Monday morning to prepare for the Sword Dancer, to be run next Saturday.

Flintshire is one of two European-based runners scheduled to run in the Sword Dancer. Guardini, a Group 2 winner in Germany last year, also is shipping in for the Sword Dancer.

The Sword Dancer, which had its purse upped to $1 million this year, is expected to attract Fixador, Imagining, Messi, Red Rifle, Twilight Eclipse, and War Dancer.