Criminal Type Is Finished for Year

Criminal Type was ruled out of racing for the year Wednesday because of an ankle injury, and trainer Mack Miller said that his precocious 2-year-old, Eastern Echo, was being retired after suffering a broken right sesamoid, the bone above the ankle.

The announcement of the loss of both horses came from Belmont Park where both were scheduled to run Saturday, Criminal Type in the Jockey Club Gold Cup and Eastern Echo in the Champagne Stakes.

The 5-year-old Criminal Type had won four consecutive major races--the Pimlico Special, the Metropolitan Handicap, the Hollywood Gold Cup and the Whitney Handicap--before finishing sixth in the Woodward Handicap.

Eastern Echo was undefeated in his only three starts, and his easy victory in the Belmont Futurity last month had stamped him as the early favorite for next year’s Kentucky Derby.

The losses of Criminal Type and Eastern Echo further riddle the Breeders’ Cup, an annual seven-race, $10-million day scheduled this year at Belmont on Oct. 27. The Breeders’ Cup fields had already been weakened considerably by injuries to Sunday Silence, the 1989 horse of the year; Easy Goer, and Housebuster, who was a horse-of-the-year candidate for 1990 before straining an ankle as he ran sixth in the Vosburgh at Belmont last Saturday. Sunday Silence and Easy Goer have been sent to stud, while Housebuster may run again next year.

Criminal Type, who has seven victories and two seconds in 11 starts with earnings of $2.2 million this year, beat Housebuster and Easy Goer in the Metropolitan and defeated Sunday Silence in the Hollywood Gold Cup. After a five-furlong workout Monday at Belmont, Criminal Type showed a tenderness while cooling out at the barn.

“X-rays showed some wear and tear,” trainer Jeff Lukas said in New York. “He will be sent to Calumet Farm (which owns Criminal Type in a partnership) for rest and further examination. It is the feeling that he could not be 100% for the Jockey Club Gold Cup and the Breeders’ Cup, so we didn’t want to take a chance on running the horse.”

At Santa Anita Wednesday, trainer Wayne Lukas, Jeff’s father, said he thought that Criminal Type could still win horse of the year honors, which are determined by a vote of more than 200 turf reporters, Daily Racing Form representatives and track racing secretaries at the end of the year.

“If somebody from Mars dropped in and you showed him Criminal Type’s record, he would ask you what all those Grade I’s mean,” Wayne Lukas said. “You’d tell him that those are the races for the best horses, and he’d know then that Criminal Type has won a lot (four) of them.

“I don’t think anybody can catch up to him in that category. There aren’t enough Grade I races left for that to happen. He shouldn’t be penalized for not running in the Breeders’ Cup. If they’re only going to look at that race to determine horse of the year, then it defeats the purpose of running these horses in all of those big races all year long.

“I don’t think the Breeders’ Cup is necessarily a day of champions, that’s not the concept. I think it’s just one facet that’s used to sort out the champions.