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Pegasus injury further depletes Belmont
Associated Press
NEW YORK -- Spooked by a noise, Fusaichi Pegasus injured his
right front foot and will not start in the Belmont Stakes next
Saturday.
|  | | Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus should resume training next week. |
Trainer Neil Drysdale said the incident occurred at 2 p.m.
Saturday while the Kentucky Derby winner was asleep in the back of
his stall at Aqueduct.
"A noise startled him, and he rushed to the front of the stall,
slipped and caught the right front hoof on the door," Drysdale
said Sunday. "It gouged a small piece the size of a dime out of
the side of his hoof.
"There is no soreness," Drysdale continued. "But he couldn't
work Tuesday, and we want to preclude further injury."
Such an injury could lead to a quarter crack.
"The cut was on the side of the hoof wall," Drysdale said.
"The most similar thing I could compare it to is grabbing a
quarter, but that is not what he did."
With trainer Joe Orseno and owner Frank Stronach deciding to
skip the Belmont with Preakness winner Red Bullet, it means the
race will be without the winners of the first two Triple Crown
races for the first time since 1970. That year Dust Commander won
the Derby and ran in the Preakness, but was not entered in the
Belmont.
Preakness winner Personality, who did not race in the
Derby, was scratched the day before the Belmont because of injury,
and the race was won by his stablemate High Echelon.
Drysdale elected to stable Fusaichi Pegasus at Aqueduct,
currently closed for racing, after his runner-up finish in the
Preakness, and planned to van him to nearby Belmont Park this week.
Fusaichi Pegasus will be flown to California, where Drysdale is
based, on Tuesday and "he should be able to resume training in
about four or five days," the trainer said.
Drysdale said he will sit down with owner Fusao Sekiguchi of
Japan and map out a plan for the rest of the year. Sekiguchi paid
$4 million for the colt as a yearling. Fusaichi Pegasus has won
five of seven starts, with two seconds. He has earned $1,904,400,
but his victory in the Derby and his bloodlines insure that the son
of Mr. Prospector out of a Danzig mare, Angel Fever, will be worth
several times his purchase price at stud.
Before Fusaichi Pegasus' defection, a field of from 10 to 12
3-year-olds was being considered for the 1½-mile Belmont, which has
a gross purse of $1 million.
Among the favorites now will be Aptitude, the Derby runner-up;
Impeachment, third in both the Derby and Preakness; Wheelaway,
fifth in the Derby, and Postponed, winner of the Peter Pan at
Belmont Park May 27.
If Impeachment starts, he will be the only one of the 19 Derby
starters to run in all three races.
Postponed is trained by Scotty Schulhofer, who won the Belmont
in 1993 with Colonial Affair and last year with Lemon Drop Kid.
Colonial Affair did not start in the Derby or Preakness, but
finished second in the Peter Pan. Lemon Drop Kid finished ninth in
the Derby, skipped the Preakness, then finished third in the Peter
Pan.
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