Dinard Out of the Derby With Injury

Dinard, the Santa Anita Derby winner and probable favorite for the Kentucky Derby on May 4, was declared out of the race Wednesday after suffering a leg injury that has jeopardized his racing career.

Dinard had an extremely slow workout Sunday at Churchill Downs, going six furlongs in 1:18 3/5, but both his trainer, Dick Lundy, and his owner-breeder, Allen Paulson, said there was nothing wrong with him.

By Tuesday, however, there was a slight swelling in his left foreleg. Wednesday morning, there was more swelling and an inflammation in the leg. An examination showed that Dinard pulled a suspensory, which is one of two ligaments that run from the ankle to the knee at the rear of the leg. It will take from two to three months before Dinard’s condition can be evaluated to determine whether he can race again.

With Dinard out of the 117th Derby, two things are likely:

--Fly So Free, who dropped to second choice after Strike the Gold beat him in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland, should become the favorite again.

--The Derby field, which was expected to be fewer than 13 horses for the first time in 13 years, should gain a few more entries without Dinard in the field.

Rumors were rife after Dinard’s poor workout. Dinard was not seen out of his stall the past couple of days. A veterinarian seemed to be unusually handy, and Lundy was handling questions with clipped, noncommittal answers.

Adding to the rumors was a comment by trainer Wayne Lukas Monday that Chris McCarron still had a chance to ride his horse, Corporate Report, in the Derby. McCarron is the only jockey who has ridden Dinard. “I know,” Lukas said at the time, “but you know how fragile these racehorses are.”

By Wednesday, McCarron was caught in a switch. Before Dinard’s condition was known, Lukas gave the mount on Corporate Report to Pat Day, whose election into the Racing Hall of Fame was announced Tuesday.

McCarron, who rode Corporate Report to a second-place finish in the Arkansas Derby last Saturday, had lost another prime Kentucky Derby mount in 1982 when Hostage, the Arkansas Derby winner, broke down in a workout at Churchill Downs a few days before the Kentucky Derby.

The injury to Dinard is another in a series of developments that have weakened the 1991 Derby. Other winners of prep races--Tank in the Garden State Stakes, Cahill Road in the Wood Memorial, Green Alligator in the California Derby and Olympio in the Arkansas Derby--are either out of the Derby or considered doubtful. Cahill Road ran the third fastest time in Wood history last Saturday at Aqueduct but suffered an injury similar to Dinard’s, and his racing future is questionable.

“We’re all sick about this,” said Ted Carr, who manages Paulson’s Brookside Farm in Lexington, Ky. “It’s hit us like a ton of bricks.”

Carr said Dinard will undergo ultrasound treatment and have X-rays taken today.

“Allen has had racing disappointments before but nothing like this,” Paulson’s wife, Madelyn, said by phone from their home in Encino. “He’s unconsolable. He’s put so much into the game (an estimated $100 million at yearling sales), and he was feeling so good about having a horse he bred by a sire he owns (Strawberry Road) making it to the Derby.”

Paulson may still have a starter in the Derby. Late Wednesday, attempts were being made to fly Cudas, the France-based Seattle Song-Aspern colt trained by Francois Boutin, to Kentucky in time for the race. Paulson was going to ask Churchill Downs officials if quarantine accommodations could be made for Cudas, rather than have the horse spend 48 hours in New York. Churchill Downs had a quarantine area when it staged the Breeders’ Cup in 1988.

Before the injury, Dinard had a chance to become the first gelding to win the Kentucky Derby since 1929. Best Pal, who finished second in the Santa Anita Derby, beaten by a half-length, is also a gelding, and Wednesday he continued to train impressively for the Kentucky Derby by working a mile in 1:39 on a track considered sloppy from an overnight storm.

Lundy gelded Dinard before he ever ran a race because it didn’t look as though the horse would ever get his mind on the business of running.

Once on the track, all Dinard did was run well. His career began with a five-furlong maiden victory at Santa Anita last Dec. 26. He moved into stakes company two weeks later and won by six lengths. Olympio beat Dinard by a nose in a sprint stake at Santa Anita in February, but Dinard won the San Rafael Stakes on March 3 and the Santa Anita Derby on April 6.

Maybe Dinard strained the leg in his last race, and perhaps he aggravated it in his workout last week. Lundy could only speculate.

He said immediately after the Santa Anita Derby that Dinard wasn’t going to Kentucky to finish second. They made it to Kentucky, all right, but not as far as the starting gate.