NEWS
Unbeaten Grade 2 winner Tiz Wonderful off Derby trail
Posted: Sunday, January 21, 2007 2:39 PM
TIZ WONDERFUL
Reed Palmer photo
Jess Jackson’s Grade 2 winner Tiz Wonderful will miss this year’s Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) due to a tendon injury in his right front leg sustained during training.
“He reached up and hit himself and there’s a blemish on the tendon,” trainer Steve Asmussen told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “So we’ll just walk him for a while, and a horse that’s walking the shedrow this time of year isn’t going to make the Derby.”
By Tiznow out of the winning Hennessy mare Evil, Tiz Wonderful streaked to a 12 1/2-length score in a maiden special weight race at Saratoga Race Course on September 2 in his career debut. He followed with a resounding 6 3/4-length romp in the Iroquois Stakes (G3) on October 29 at Churchill for owner Jess Jackson’s Stonestreet Stables and closed his two-year-old season with a victory in the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes.
“I’ve never had my hands on a horse with his combination of talents,” Asmussen told the newspaper. “He’s absolutely amazing, with the speed and stamina he has. He’s very fast, and he keeps running. He’s the first horse I’ve ever had that I never doubted could go the [1 1/4-mile Kentucky Derby] distance.”
