Preakness Stakes hopeful Royal Mo suffered a career-ending injury during a Preakness workout Sunday at Pimlico Race Course. Fortunately the fractured right ankle was not life-threatening. He will be retired.
Preakness 2017: Royal Mo suffers career-ending injury
“This is absolutely a career-ending injury,” Dan Dreyfuss, the vet who attended to Royal Mo, told DRF.com. “He is done as a racehorse. If there are no complications, from a life standpoint he should be OK.”
Royal Mo had been one of the two horses who would have had an opportunity to run the Kentucky Derby a week ago had one of the 20 horses in the field scratched. That did not happen, but he was set up well to come into the Preakness, which will be run this Saturday, well rested.
At the time of the injury, jockey Gary Stevens was working Royal Mo out for five furlongs. He told DRF he heard a pop. Stevens slowed the horse up and quickly hopped off to help support the leg while waiting for medical help to arrive.
“He tolerated that incredibly well, he’s a first-class patient,” Dreyfuss said. “We were able to walk him onto the horse ambulance, brought him back to the stakes barn, took radiographs through the Kimzey and at that point saw the comminuted fracture.”
Royal Mo finished third in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby in April and third in the Grade 3 Robert B. Lewis Stakes in February.
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