Kentucky Derby Contenders: Another One Bites The Dust

Added on May 03, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

Horse Racing

In a year that has already seen an unprecedented number of injuries to potential Kentucky Derby contenders there could be more to come. On Tuesday the announcement was made that Toby’s Corner–the Wood Memorial winner and a likely top Kentucky Derby betting favorite–was out of the race due to an unspecified issue with his hind leg.

Toby’s Corner has won 4 of his last 6 starts including an upset in the Wood Memorial where he outdueled previously undefeated Uncle Mo. Toby’s Corner was sent to the New Bolton Center in Pennsylvania, a noted equine treatment facility, after trainer Graham Motion noticed that he was lame in his left hind leg after a Sunday workout. He was scheduled to travel to Churchill Downs on Monday but instead remained at the Bolton Center under the care of Dr. Dean Richardson. The initial diagnosis was optimistic for the long term–Dr. Richardson catagorized it as being ‘simply lame’ and ranked it a 2 on a scale of 1 to 5.

Richardson, best known for his work on the legendary 2006 Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, re-evaluated Toby’s Corner on Tuesday and performed a nuclear bone scan which revealed no definite injury. More tests are scheduled for the next couple of days. Trainer Motion had mixed feelings over the unfortunate turn of events–on one hand, he was happy that it doesn’t look particularly serious at this point but obviously disappointed about the timing so close to the Kentucky Derby:

“I’m at a bit of a loss; I think Dean (Dr. Richardson) is, too. He was still off this morning, and obviously we couldn’t get on the van, even though we couldn’t see anything wrong.”

Motion said that he’d been training exceptionally well coming out of the Wood and in preparation for the Derby and that he’d never shown any signs of a leg problem before:

“I swear he’s done better since he ran than he did coming out of the Gotham and this is something that totally broadsided us. I don’t ever remember having an issue with him behind before.”

Motion’s colleague, trainer Todd Pletcher, can sympathize–he lost 2010 Kentucky Derby favorite Eskendreya to a career ending injury less than a week before the race:

“I feel very bad for the connections. Tough game. You get reminded all the time. The good news is it doesn’t sound career-threatening or anything like that. It’s another one of the reasons why this is so hard to win. It’s all about timing.”

Motion said that the worst part of his job was breaking the news to the owners:

“It’s brutal. You hate to be the guy that has to deal with these issues Derby week. I feel bad for the Cotters. Luckily, they’re horse people and they’re completely understanding.”

Motion was speaking of owner Dianne Cotter and her husband Julian. They were en route from Florida to Louisville when they got the news, but their family is still planning to attend the ‘Run For The Roses’. Dianne Cotter took the news in stride:

“It certainly won’t be what it could have been. Toby had a really good chance. Things happen. Hopefully, it’s nothing horribly bad and hopefully down the road there’ll be another race and we’ll be all together again and have Toby to root for.”

Motion still has a horse entered in the Derby–that’s Spiral Stakes winner Animal Kingdom. Up until now he wasn’t considered a favorite to win but with so many of the top contenders out of the race the 2011 Kentucky Derby is definitely a wide open affair.