Updates

Phosphorescent had another good week. Lupe plans to breeze him a half-mile tomorrow at Penn National before shipping back to Philadelphia on Friday. We are on target for the $250,000 Turf Monster on September 6th at Philadelphia.


Mr. Fantasy is set to work back on Friday morning at Saratoga. Mike reports that he has had a very solid week of training. He had a strong gallop this morning followed by an uneventful schooling session at the gate.Mike has circled the “two other than” allowance going 6 furlongs on September 4th at Saratoga as our race target (we are still eligible for the race by virtue of the fact that we won restricted races that did not count against this condition). He is not comfortable entering the Charles Dowd Stakes going 7 furlongs first time back to the races since May. He also thinks the race will attract a salty group of horses. We should be very tough in the allowance race. He has run well since he returned off the layoff, but we need to see him win and finish his races with the same kind of authority we saw in the spring of his three-year-old season before we start devising grand plans. Mike did say that if we win this next race, we will have a lot of options moving into Mr. Fantasy’s fall campaign.Click here to see a video of Mr. Fantasy galloping and gate schooling this morning.

The Defense Rests is scheduled to be re-xrayed this week. We will be back in touch later in the week with a report from the vet.

Brave Monarch did not work this week because he has a splint on his left front leg that flared up. A splint is a hard, bony swelling on the inside of the front leg.
A horse's leg contains a cannon bone which is flanked by two small bones on either side. These bones are often referred to as splint bones and they are actually attached to the cannon bone by a ligament. When properly aligned, they serve as a support to the cannon bone, yet if by injury or strain the ligament is damaged, obvious swelling and inflammation are the case. Quite often referred to as a true splint, this condition will cause a horse to experience mild lameness, heat at the affected area, as well as tender swelling. They are quite common in racehorses. This is not a serious issue. Brave Monarch only exhibited mild lameness because of the splint.
He has had the splint for a while, but it was "cold." Many horses have splints that do not bother them. He must have banged himself which caused the splint to become "hot" and sore. Accordingly he will be iced extensively for the next three days to help with the swelling. After three days, the vet will freeze fire the area. Freeze firing the splint will help improve circulation in the area thus helping the bone to heal.
He will be out training for 7 days after the freeze firing. In total he is going to be out of training for 10 days. We will get him back into regular training and look to run in late September or early October at Belmont.