Preakness Stakes winner Shackleford is a better than 50 per cent chance to run in the Belmont Stakes.The race on June 11 could serve as a rubber match between the colt and Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom."If he trains like he did going into the Derby, I don't know why we would pass," trainer Dale Romans said of Shackleford."I've always thought, just like Woody Stephens said a long time ago, that the Belmont is really a speed horse's race."A mile and a half (2400m) is such a gruelling race,

Preakness Stakes winner Shackleford is a better than 50 per cent chance to run in the Belmont Stakes.

The race on June 11 could serve as a rubber match between the colt and Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom.

"If he trains like he did going into the Derby, I don't know why we would pass," trainer Dale Romans said of Shackleford.

"I've always thought, just like Woody Stephens said a long time ago, that the Belmont is really a speed horse's race.

"A mile and a half (2400m) is such a gruelling race, they'll all be tired when they get to the eighth pole (200m)."

Romans said he hoped Animal Kingdom would be at the Belmont on June 11 because a rematch between the two would be good for horse racing.

Animal Kingdom, trained in Maryland by Graham Motion, couldn't quite run down Shackleford and finished a half length second.

"It would be great if we could develop a little rivalry inside the three-year-old division," Romans said.

"I think these three-year-olds are a lot better than people are giving them credit for. This is a good group of horses."

Whether that's true will likely continue to be a subject worthy of debate. Shackleford's winning time of 1 minute 56.47 seconds was the slowest in the Preakness since 1993.

But none of that mattered to Shackleford's connections. Although his owners, Michael Lauffer and W D Cubbedge, have typically tried to sell the colts they breed while keeping fillies for racing, they had a special feeling about Shackleford.

They put him up for auction at the Keeneland September yearling sale two years ago, and when no bid met the reserve price of $275,000, they decided to pull him back. On Saturday at Pimlico, he netted them more than $1.1 million.

Romans said he never had any doubts during the race, even though Animal Kingdom was coming fast at the end.

"It didn't look like anybody could catch him," Romans said.

"It looked like he had control of the race the whole way. It just didn't look like anyone was going to get there to me, from the quarter pole home."

Romans also didn't feel guilty about playing the role of spoiler in Animal Kingdom's quest for the Triple Crown.

It has been 33 years since Affirmed was the last horse to accomplish the feat, a drought that has led plenty of horsemen to propose that the format be changed. Romans, however, isn't one of them.

"There is going to be a Triple Crown winner one of these days," Romans said.

"The 1970s were great, but before that, there was a big span without a horse winning a Triple Crown.

"It takes a super horse to do it when you're running three different racetracks, three different distances, all within five weeks.

"But one of these days, a super horse will come along. I don't think anything should be changed about it."