War Pass will miss the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) after veterinarian Dr. Rick Fischer discovered a small fracture in the colt's left front ankle.
The colt is expected to miss several months alothough it is too early to tell if surgery will be required.
"It’s at the back of the ankle, and it pulled away from the sesamoid," trainer Nick Zito said. "It’s very small. In fact, he [Fischer] took the picture again and had a technician look at the digital images, because there’s no swelling there. He’s actually walking sound."
It is possible that the colt suffered the injury during the running of the Wood Memorial Stakes (G1) at Aqueduct on April 5 when he finished second to Tale of Ekati in that race after battling for the lead in rapid early fractions.
War Pass had shipped to Zito’s barn at Churchill Downs on the day after the Wood Memorial, and for several days the colt appeared to be thriving in his new surroundings.
But Zito and his staff began to feel that something was amiss with War Pass, but couldn’t put a finger on a problem because of the lack of swelling or other obvious physical symptoms.
"We had some good days, but we started to get some bad days," Zito said. "We were getting to crunch time and I was getting these funny things, and I just couldn’t get through it. The Wood was a killer – anybody who saw it knows it was a gut-wrenching performance. The race took its toll, but when he got back to the barn at Belmont, he was great – that’s the heart he’s got."
Jockey Cornelio Velasquez, after War Pass galloped home with ease in his 2008 debut in a February 24 allowance race at Gulfstream Park:
"He's a very happy horse. He's the best horse in the country right now. He's better than last year. He galloped out really strong. He wanted to win today."