A hot tendon has scratched the Canadian connection from Saturday’s Triple Crown and burst the balloon of the Stettler man who was part of the team.
On Friday morning, race trainer Doug O’Neill announced that I’ll Have Another, heavily favoured to win the Belmont Stakes and become horse racing’s first Triple Crown winner since 1978, has a minor injury and will not be able to run.
Bred in Kentucky, I’ll Have Another belongs to Ontario businessman J. Paul Reddam and won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness under the confident guidance of jockey Miguel Guiterrez, whose racing career started in Vancouver. The two wins set him up to be the first horse since Affirmed to claim the Triple Crown, the most elusive trophy in professional sports. Only 11 horses, starting with Sir Barton in 1919, have been able to claim the prize.
A key member of I’ll Have Another’s team is 53-year-old Larry “Thumper” Jones, raised in Stettler and now owner of an equine rehabilitation centre in Texas.
Retired from hockey after back surgery, Jones decided to take what he had learned about his own injury to the racetrack, offering his services to chuckwagon racers and expanding from there. His nickname, Thumper, comes from the thumping action of a tool he uses to massage the lower back area, where high-performance horses are prone to pain and injury.
Jones and his partner, Reo King of Bassano, were hired in January to help O’Neill with his race horses, including the promising colt who will be watching from his stall at Belmont Park as his neighbours head for the track.
With a little more than a day to go before running the third and final leg of the Triple Crown, O’Neill announced that I’ll Have Another had developed some tenderness in a tendon of his front left leg after his morning workout on Friday. While not a major problem, it means that I’ll Have Another is not fit for the gruelling battle awaiting the 11 horses that remain on the card for Saturday’s 12-furlong Belmont, the longest and toughest of the three races in the Triple Crown.
Jones could not be reached for comment on Friday.
bkossowan@www.reddeeradvocate.com