John Shirreffs Quotations

You want your horse to win if possible, but you don't want to beat him up. You've got to think down the road a little bit.

It's always best to have the least amount of pressure. I kind of like just going in there and that's it.

It makes sense to stay here. We have such good weather.

He's improving. He has a lot of pedigree and talent and he loves going long. I think his potential is unlimited.

Going a mile and an eighth first time out was pretty tough, but that race moved him a lot more forward than I could have just training him.

He's a very classy horse. It's just when he sees a horse in front of him, he gets that horse on his mind and wants to go catch him. So the trick is to not let him get too aggressive about that.

I probably would want a horse that's a little versatile and one that's gotten a lot of dirt in their face.

The main thing is we wanted him to settle. We didn't want to push him. We didn't want to take a hold of him. We just wanted him to place himself. We had the experience of knowing what they did in his prior race.

We were looking for a quiet place and this is it. What's better than coming to Belmont Park and stabling in the Phipps' barn?

We didn't expect him to do that well going short. He ran so well.