Trot Insider has learned that Little Brown Jug winner Courtly Choice has made the final start of his sophomore season.
Trainer and co-owner Blake MacIntosh has shut down Courtly Choice after the three-year-old finished sixth in his Breeders Crown elimination on Saturday (October 20) and failed to advance to the final.
"I would like to thank everyone and especially Courtly for the amazing year and a summer I will never forget," said MacIntosh in a post on Twitter. "Courtly is done for the year. Those two big trips at the Jug have taken a bit out of him; I believe he left everything he had on the track that day."
The Little Brown Jug victory for Courtly Choice will be remembered and talked about for years to come. After making a break at the start of his elimination and making a miraculous recovery to qualify for the final, the sophomore gutted out a first-over trip and lunged late to seize the historic victory.
Owned by Hutt Racing Stable (Paoli, PA), Mac And Heim Stables (Cambridge, Ont.), Daniel Plouffe (Bromont, Que.), and Touch Stone Farms (Guelph, Ont.), Courtly Choice won 10 of 16 seasonal starts -- including his lifetime best 1:47.1 win in the 2018 Crawford Farms Meadowlands Pace -- and banked $922,158. For his career, the son of Art Major - Lady Ashlee Ann tallied 12 wins with purses totalling $977,153.
Future plans for Courtly Choice have yet to be determined.
Let's hope that Courtly
Let's hope that Courtly Choice returns to race again next year at age 4 against Lather Up and Dursodoro Hanover. The same goes for Stay Hungry.