Paid Up Subscriber breaks ankle

ELMONT, N.Y. – The euphoria of Paid Up Subscriber’s 32 1/2-length victory in last Sunday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Shuvee Handicap at Saratoga didn’t last long, as the 5-yearold mare came out of the race with a fractured right front ankle, an injury that might end her racing career, trainer Chad Brown said.

Brown said Paid Up Subscriber was to undergo surgery Wednesday to have one or two screws inserted to repair the injury. While she is definitely out for the remainder of this year, Brown said no decision has been made by owners Peter Brant and Joe Allen about whether to breed Paid Up Subscriber in 2018 or try to bring her back to the races.

“Her racing future at this point is undecided,” Brown said Tuesday in his Belmont Park office. “It’s extremely disappointing because she won so easy it’s hard to imagine that she could get hurt in a race where she just galloped through the lane.”

Many horsemen have described the Saratoga main track at this meet as laboring.

A daughter of Candy Ride, Paid Up Subscriber began her career in the barn of Al Stall for owners Seth Klarman and William Lawrence. She has won 4 of 11 starts, topped by a three-length victory in the Grade 2 Fleur de Lis Handicap at Churchill Downs in June 2016. She has placed in two Grade 1 stakes, finishing second to I’m a Chatterbox in both the Delaware Handicap and Spinster.

Brant and Allen purchased Paid Up Subscriber for $1.1 million at last November’s Fasig-Tipton sale of breeding and racing stock.

The victory in the threehorse Shuvee followed losses in three consecutive Grade 1 races – the Madison at Keeneland, the La Troienne at Churchill, and the Ogden Phipps at Belmont Park – to begin the year. In the Phipps, Paid Up Subscriber took the lead in the stretch from Songbird only to have the two-time Eclipse Award champion filly come back and beat her by a length.

Paid Up Subscriber has a record of 5-3-2 from 15 starts and earnings of $862,850.