Oh no, not Another
Tender tendon ends run to Triple Crown
The Triple Crown will go vacant for another year.
I’ll Have Another’s bid to become only the 12th Triple Crown winner in horse racing history came to a stunning end Friday morning when trainer Doug O’Neill announced the colt would be scratched because of a career-ending tendon injury in his left front leg.
The news of I’ll Have Another’s defection broke a little more than 24 hours before he would attempt to win the 144th Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y., and become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978.
“Just a freakish thing,” O’Neill said during a news conference early Friday afternoon at Belmont Park. “He’s been a little quiet the last few days of galloping, but his legs have been great.”
O’Neill said a “loss of definition” was detected in the colt’s left front leg Thursday afternoon, however, with the hope being it was only minor skin irritation from hitting himself.
O’Neill said I’ll Have Another was treated with a special poultice and he looked “great” galloping Friday morning.
“Cooling out, you could tell that the swelling was back,” O’Neill said. “At that point, I didn’t feel very good.”
Image scans, O’Neill said, revealed the onset of
tendonitis and I’ll Have Another would need 3-6 months to recover.
Instead, I’ll Have Another was retired to begin a breeding career in 2013.
“It is a bummer,” O’Neill said. “Far from tragic, but it is very disappointing.”
Owned by California businessman J. Paul Reddam, I’ll Have Another retires with five victories from seven lifetime starts and earnings of $2,693,600.
The loss of I’ll Have Another, the 4-5 program favorite today, reduces the projected Belmont starting field to 11, including two horses with ties to Arkansas and Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs.
Post time for the 1 1-2-mile Belmont, billed as “The Test of a Champion,” is 5:40 p.m. (Central).
NBC will provide live coverage from 3:30 p.m.-6 p.m. (Central).
Atigun will attempt to give owner John Ed Anthony of Hot Springs his second Belmont winner.
Atigun wintered at Oaklawn and started three times at the meeting.
Optimizer, trained by Hall of Famer D. Wayne Lukas, also ran three times at Oaklawn.
Atigun (15-1 in the program after the morning line was revised) marks Anthony’s first Triple Crown starter since champion Prairie Bayou, who was euthanized after breaking down as the favorite in the 1993 Belmont.
“I think we have a legitimate colt,” Anthony said. “It’s a long road from the fall of the 2-year-old year to June of their 3-year-old year. People sometimes forget that these are evolving young horses. I kind of put them in the category of high school kids and college kids.
“This is kind of the end of their college careers, the summer of their 3-year-old year, and they move into the pros then.”
Named for an Alaskan mountain pass, Atigun hasn’t started since winning a second-level allowance race May 5 at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.
Sandwiched around a firstlevel allowance victory Jan. 15 at Oaklawn was an 11th-place finish in the $500,000 Grade II Rebel Stakes on March 17 and a fifth-place finish in the $1 million Grade I Arkansas Derby on April 14.
Anthony said Atigun, who had a minor foot problem over the winter, was too close to the pace in the Rebel and simply no match for Bodemeister in the Arkansas Derby.
1 Bodemeister rolled to a 9/ 2length victory in the Arkansas Derby before finishing second to I’ll Have Another in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.
“With the combination of a little better luck and a little better ride and a little bit more distance, I think he’ll be competitive,” Anthony said. “He’s coming into the race beautifully. He ran a big, big race at Churchill Downs on Derby Day. I think he’s a fresh horse running at a track that he likes a great deal. It’s a good distance for him. He’ll run all day.”
Atigun is trained by Ken McPeek, who was born in Fort Chaffee and spoiled War Emblem’s Triple Crown bid in the 2002 Belmont with Sarvara, a 70-1 shot.
Anthony won the 1980 Belmont with champion Temperence Hill, a supplementary nominee who went off at 53-1.
Anthony also finished second in the 1984 Belmont with Pine Circle and third in the 1992 Belmont with Pine Bluff.
Anthony calls Atigun, from the first crop of Istan, a “grand individual” who continues to improve.
“He’s a big, strong goodlooking horse,” Anthony said. “He’s maturing nicely.”