A life-threatening injury to Three Hour Nap on Saturday marred Suave’s record performance in the Grade III $300,000 Washington Park Handicap at Arlington Park.
Three Hour Nap was pulled up with a half-mile to run and was taken off the track in the horse ambulance. After a veterinary examination of his injured right front foot at the barn of his trainer, Hugh Robertson, he was loaded onto a van to be taken to Root and Riddle, a veterinary clinic near Lexington, Ky., for surgery early Sunday.
“He has a condular fracture spiraling up his cannon bone,” Robertson said. “There’s another less-serious fracture that goes out to the side and comes down into the right front ankle joint. It’s a good thing [jockey] Francisco Torres got him pulled up when he did and jumped off. If he had continued to ride him, he would have broken it off.
“The problem will be to keep him stable after surgery.”
If the operation is unsuccessful and the 4-year-old colt has to be given a lethal injection, he will become the 20th racing casualty in the first 61 days of the meeting, a statistic that has stirred a controversy over the safety of the racing surface.
In an exclusive Tribune interview before the race, Arlington President Roy Arnold explained the circumstances surrounding his “casual conversation of less than five minutes with the door open” with Greg Coon, an independent consultant the Illinois Racing Board hired to inspect the racing surface July 12-14.
After learning Coon subsequently provided recommendations to Arlington that were not included in his report to the board, the IRB came to the conclusion his analysis may have been compromised and announced Friday it will hire another consultant to conduct another inspection.
Arnold said he was having “a normal staff meeting” on July 14 and told his staff if Coon was still at the track he would like to have the consultant “stop by because I want to make sure he leaves having gone through everything he needs to answer the IRB’s questions.”
Arnold said Coon told him the track was safe and that he asked Coon to send him recommendations from the “best practices in the industry” to implement.
Twelve days later, Coon sent four minor suggestions in a report Arnold shared with the Tribune. Arnold said he now realizes he should have been more aware that his speaking with Coon created an impression he tried to influence Coon.
Most of the breakdowns have taken place going into the turn for home, but in Saturday’s race Three Hour Nap was pulled up between the far turn and the turn for home.
In retrospect, there was a possible indication that something wasn’t right when Three Hour Nap was unruly in the post parade and threw Torres from the saddle. The colt also had a history of injuries.
Suave smashed Arlington Park’s 1 3/16-mile track record in the track’s richest and most prestigious dirt race.
Paul McGee, the Kentucky-based trainer of Suave, said the unusually high number of breakdowns didn’t make him uneasy about sending horses to Arlington.
“I’ve been coming here for about 10 years and I feel like the track is the same as it always has been,” he said after his 5-year-old horse won in 1 minute 53.53 seconds, breaking the record of 1:54.27 Perfect Drift set last year.
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nmilbert@tribune.com
