Silver Charm to Take a Break

Silver Charm, the winner of the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, is getting a summer vacation, but not the kind that owners Bob and Beverly Lewis and trainer Bob Baffert had in mind.

In training at Santa Anita for the $1-million Haskell Handicap at Monmouth Park, Silver Charm has run a temperature for the second time in two weeks and will miss the New Jersey race on Aug. 3 as well as the $750,000 Travers at Saratoga, N.Y., on Aug. 23.

“We’re going to give him a good, long rest,” Bob Lewis said Thursday. “He has a history of getting these fevers, so there must be something there, and we’re going to have to try to get to the bottom of it.”

Lewis said that tests this week showed that Silver Charm has a high white blood cell count, and that was the determining factor in suspending his race schedule.

“This is distressing, but the important thing is that the horse is in good condition,” Lewis said. “He’ll race again, and we hope to race him next year as a 4-year-old. It’s just that we don’t know what his immediate plans are.”

Silver Charm, who finished second to Touch Gold in the Belmont, missing a Triple Crown sweep and costing the Lewises a $5-million bonus, worked last Saturday in a sharp :59 3/5 for five furlongs. The colt was shipped to Churchill Downs after the Belmont, and then moved to Santa Anita, where Baffert stables most of his horses, on June 30.

“He worked magnificently last weekend,” Lewis said, “but then he spiked that temperature.”

The Santa Anita stable area will be closed soon, but Lewis said that it is unlikely that Silver Charm would wind up at Del Mar, where Baffert will send his horses for a seven-week season that starts Wednesday. One possibility would be to send Silver Charm to a farm in Bradbury.

“We wouldn’t send him to Del Mar, because he’s not expected to run there,” Lewis said.

The illness of Silver Charm will prevent a Triple Crown rematch with Touch Gold and Free House in the Travers. Free House, who finished third in the Kentucky Derby, second in the Preakness and third in the Belmont after beating Silver Charm in the Santa Anita Derby, will run Sunday in the Swaps Stakes at Hollywood Park and probably go in the Travers after that. Touch Gold’s training pattern has been affected by a cracked hoof that was successfully patched before the Belmont, but he worked six furlongs in 1:12 at Hollywood Park on Wednesday and is a probable for the Haskell.

Silver Charm, who has five wins and four seconds in nine starts and earnings of $1.7 million, is not eligible for the $4-million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Hollywood Park on Nov. 8. When the Lewises bought him last year for $85,000, as an unraced 2-year-old, Silver Charm had not been nominated by his previous owner. Silver Charm could be supplemented into the Classic at a cost of $480,000. Earlier, Bob Lewis said he would not pay the supplement. This month, the Breeders’ Cup changed its rule, allowing for supplementary moneys to be added to the purse. Lewis said Thursday that it’s too early to determine whether he might change his mind.

Horse Racing Notes

Free House is the 4-5 favorite in the $500,000 Swaps, which also drew Hello, Activist, Deputy Commander, Wild Rush and Precocity. . . . In other stakes Sunday at Hollywood, Twice The Vice is 6-5 and Jewel Princess 7-5 in the $400,000 Vanity Handicap, Marlin is 8-5 for the $400,000 Sunset Handicap and K.O. Punch is 9-5 in the $100,000 Hollywood Juvenile. . . . The only rivals for Twice The Vice and Jewel Princess are Listening, Real Connection and Biltmore Breeze.