Neil Howard to work as assistant to McGaughey

Trainer Neil Howard is disbanding his stable and will work as an assistant to Shug McGaughey.

With the move, reported Monday by the Daily Racing Form, Howard will work with a string of McGaughey's horses based at Churchill Downs.

"I think Shug wants to start having a little more of a presence here with a string here at Churchill, which would kind of be one part of my circuit," Howard told Horse Racing Nation Monday. "And then beyond that, he's going to let me know where he wants me."

Howard said it wasn't quite a spur-of-the-moment decision.

"The thought of doing something like that had been kind of crossing my mind a little bit the last year or two. I wanted to step away, not stop working, but maybe just kind of do something like this. And then Shug opened the door for me, and it didn't take me long to decide that that could be something I'd like to do, with that particular person and everything surrounding that.

"I just thought that it would be something that would be fit me good," Howard said. "Because I wanted to keep doing what I'm doing but in a little bit of a different capacity."

HRN could not reach McGaughey for comment, but he told DRF that he wants to "take advantage of what’s going on in Kentucky" with larger purses.

Also, McGaughey assistant Lindsay Schultz is going out on her own.

Howard said McGaughey is giving him time to disband his string of 10 at Churchill, "which I'm in the process of starting to do right now. I'm still going to be running a few horses here the rest of the little September meet here at Churchill. And I have one that I may run one on the first day or two at Keeneland, and that may be.

"To be honest with you, I'm trying to get this all done sooner than later, for all the obvious reasons for me and for Shug," Howard said. "Now that I've committed to him, I want to get over there with him as soon as I can, so Shug get in a comfort zone with what's going on, and then Lindsay can get on with her with her career. So I want to I want to try to do whatever I can to make it easy as quickly as possible for all concerned."