Career Finished for Grindstone

Five days after his last-gasp victory in the Kentucky Derby, Grindstone was retired Thursday when a bone chip was discovered in his right knee.

William T. Young, who bred and raced Grindstone, made the decision after his veterinarian, Robert Copelan, said that a second operation on the knee would probably enable the colt to run again, but not at a high-caliber level of competition.

Grindstone, who came from 15th place to beat Cavonnier by a nose in the closest Derby finish in 37 years, will stand at stud next year at Young’s Overbook Farm in Lexington, Ky. His retirement leaves the Preakness, the middle race in the Triple Crown, without the Derby winner for only the fourth time since 1959 and guarantees that there will be no Triple Crown sweep for the 18th consecutive year.

Young, who also races Editor’s Note, the sixth-place finisher in the Derby, said he is still scheduled to run in the Preakness, May 18 at Pimlico.

Trainer Wayne Lukas, who extended his record to six Triple Crown wins in a row when Grindstone won the Derby, will go after his third consecutive Preakness win with Editor’s Note and Prince Of Thieves, the third-place Derby finisher.

In his first exercise at Churchill Downs since the Derby, Grindstone jogged lightly around the track Thursday.

“After that, they noticed that he wasn’t walking right,” Young said.

X-rays showed a small chip in the same knee that underwent arthroscopic surgery last August.

“The chip was described to me as being half as big as the end of your little finger,” Young said. “The injury isn’t life-threatening, but if he wasn’t going to come back to his present form, I didn’t want to take the chance of racing him anymore. I said after we lost Grand Canyon that I wouldn’t go through that again.”

Grand Canyon, owned by Young and also trained by Lukas, was one of the fastest 2-year-olds ever. In 1989, after winning the Norfolk at Santa Anita and finishing second to Rhythm in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Gulfstream Park, he won the one-mile Hollywood Futurity in 1:33, missing Dr. Fager’s world record, set in 1968, by four-fifths of a second.

In the winter of 1990, Lukas had Grand Canyon in training at Santa Anita, getting him ready for Kentucky Derby prep races, when he was injured.

“We tried to nurse him back instead of retiring him,” Young said. “Then he got laminitis [a circulatory hoof disorder] in his good leg, and we had to put him down. We were left with nothing--no racehorse, no stallion.”

Grindstone was a surprise winner in the Derby and would have gone off a much higher price than 5-1 had he not run as an entry with Editor’s Note. Under Jerry Bailey, Grindstone ran 1 1/4 miles in 2:01, the sixth-fastest in Derby history.

“He gave us the ultimate thrill--he won the ultimate race,” Lukas said. “We’re very happy and grateful for that.

“I’ve been through this a number of times, but it’s never been a horse of this magnitude. But you can ask all the trainers on the backside [at Churchill Downs] and they’ll tell you this [injury] is the nature of the game.

“I’ve learned to accept this. It’s a downer, but maybe we ought to put a positive spin on it. He’s only raced six times. Now all he has to do is go out to a green pasture and look for that mare.”

Although Grindstone had won the Louisiana Derby in March and finished a close second to Zarb’s Magic in the Arkansas Derby on April 13, there had been rumors of unsoundness. A slow workout at Churchill Downs on April 22 fueled speculation, and on April 27, a week before the Derby, a trainer who had shipped a horse to Kentucky with Grindstone said he had gotten a good look at Lukas’ colt and didn’t like the shape of the knee.

After the Derby, there were even unconfirmed reports that Grindstone needed a van to get him from the detention barn to Lukas’ barn. Young said Thursday that he hadn’t heard that one, and Copelan discounted the story.

“We were upping the [life] insurance,” Young said, “so the horse had to be ‘vetted’ the day after the Derby. They gave him a clean bill of health.”

With only five starts before the Derby, Grindstone was the most lightly raced winner of the race since Brokers Tip won in 1933. The son of Unbridled, the Derby winner in 1990, ran only twice last year, winning his first race at Belmont Park in June. He had a rough trip--and may have first injured the knee--while running fourth in the Bashford Manor Stakes at Churchill Downs on July 1.

Recovered from surgery, Grindstone returned to the races in February at Santa Anita, finishing fourth in an allowance race, and then Lukas took him out of town, to tracks that were perhaps less punishing than the California surfaces. Lukas believed Grindstone would run well in the Derby because Churchill Downs’ surface closely resembled that of the Fair Grounds in New Orleans. After the Derby, the trainer said:

“Both tracks have soft sand. You can tell it’s coarser when you hold it in your hand. It’s smooth and soft, like silicone.”

Grindstone earned $869,800 in the first $1-million Derby, bringing his lifetime total to $1,224,510.

“We’re comfortable about retiring him,” Young said. “This is in the best interest of the health of the horse, and it’s simply the right thing to do. We are so thankful for the Derby win, and now we’ll just have to grin and bear it. He will make a terrific sire.”

The last time the Preakness didn’t have the Derby winner was in 1985, when Spend A Buck skipped the race to run in the Jersey Derby at Garden State Park, which paid out a $2-million bonus when he won. Three years before that, after Gato Del Sol won the Derby, his trainer, Eddie Gregson, bypassed the Preakness because he believed the shorter distance and the tighter configuration of the track would compromise his colt. Gato Del Sol was the first Derby winner to miss the Preakness since Tomy Lee in 1959.

Grindstone becomes the first Derby winner to miss the Preakness because of an injury since Hill Gail in 1952. The last horse to win the Derby and then never race again was Bubbling Over, who suffered a tendon injury while finishing first at Churchill Downs in 1926.

“My sympathies are for Mr. Young and Wayne Lukas,” said Joe De Francis, president of Pimlico. “It’s a real shame about their horse. This shows how you can be on top of the world in this game one day, then drop into the depths of despair in only a matter of days. The Preakness is still the Preakness, but now we’re faced with the situation of not having the possibility of a Triple Crown winner.”

De Francis said that Unbridled’s Song, the Derby favorite who finished fifth, is still listed as “possible” for the Preakness. The colt with the cracked hoof and bruised foot has been shipped to Monmouth Park, where he will be examined by a veterinarian and a blacksmith.

Earlier this week, Ernie Paragallo, Unbridled’s Song’s owner, didn’t sound positive. “I love the animal more than I love winning,” he said. “We can’t make him go in bar shoes again. The horse doesn’t deserve it.”

The Preakness favorite is expected to be Cavonnier, the Santa Anita Derby winner who lost in the final jump to Grindstone in the Derby. Even before Grindstone’s injury, a field of close to the capacity of 14 was expected for the Preakness, most of them horses who hadn’t run in the Derby.

“Cavonnier came back really good from the Derby,” trainer Bob Baffert said Thursday. “Grindstone was a very courageous horse. You can see how this race can be tough on horses, going a mile and a quarter and carrying 126 pounds.”