I’ll Have Another’s triple crown bid ends with leg injury
I’ll Have Another, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner who was aiming to become the 12th horse to win the Triple Crown, was scratched Friday from Saturday’s Belmont Stakes. USA Today now reports the horse will be retired from racing because of a leg injury.
The 3-year-old colt, who had been a long-shot winner of the Derby and an impressive winner three weeks ago in the Preakness, has tendinitis in his left front leg, his trainer, Doug O’Neill, said.
At a news conference Friday afternoon in front of Barn 2 at Belmont Park, where the Belmont Stakes horses have been quartered since Wednesday, O’Neill and the horse’s owner, J. Paul Reddam, announced that I’ll Have Another would be retired.
“We did just an easy gallop with him around the track and cooling out you could tell the swelling was back,” O’Neill said after showing off the colt to the media at the press conference.
He said the injury was diagnosed the start of tendonitis in his left front tendon and that prompted the unanimous decision to retire I’ll Have another.
“It’s far from tragic, but it is disappointing,” O’Neill said.
“It’s been an incredible ride and incredible run,” he said. “I know we are going to be back here again. It’s just a freakish thing.”