Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf heroine Perfect Shirl will be forced to miss
Saturday’s Group 1 Gran Premio Carlos Pellegrini at San Isidro Racecourse, near
Buenos Aires, after travel problems arose earlier this week.
The Roger Attfield trainee was prevented from making her South American debut
after numerous scheduled flights were all canceled.
“It was a shipping issue that got totally silly,” Attfield told the Daily
Race Form. “It was cancellations and delays. It was getting a little too
close anyway. It just got bizarre and it was too close.”
Currently in training at Payson Park in Florida, the bay daughter of Perfect
Soul shocked at odds of 27-1 when taking the Filly & Mare Turf last out by three
parts of a length. It was her first win since capturing the Grade 2 Lake George
Stakes at Saratoga in 2010. She entered the Breeders’ Cup off a pair of placings
in the Grade 2 Canadian Stakes and Belle Mahone Stakes, both at Woodbine.
Perfect Shirl, a Charles Fipke Kentucky homebred, is expected to race next
year as a five-year-old. Her current record reads 15-4-2-5 with $1,390,729 in
career earnings.