Vindication Injured, Out of Triple Crown

Only a little more than a week ago, Satish Sanan was on the stage at a swank hotel in Beverly Hills, long-windedly accepting an Eclipse Award for Vindication before his wife Anne reached over his shoulder, grabbed his notes and gently led him away.

Sanan, who has spent tens of millions of dollars on young horses in the last six years and bought mostly bad luck, could wistfully see Vindication, undefeated in four starts as a 2-year-old and the early favorite for this year’s Kentucky Derby, as his breakout horse.

“We thought that with Vindication, it would be our turn,” Nadia Sanan said Thursday from Padua Stables near Ocala, Fla. Her father, chairman of an information technology company, was on business in Atlanta, where he learned that Vindication, in training with Bob Baffert at Santa Anita, had suffered an injury to his left foreleg. Vindication will miss the Derby and the rest of the Triple Crown, and his future as a racehorse is unclear.

The injury was discovered after an ultrasound examination. “They’ll take another ultrasound in 60 days to determine how serious it is,” said Nadia Sanan, who is general manager of Padua. “The entire family is heartbroken. We’re in shock and we’re numb. It’s devastating.”

The injury means that Vindication becomes the 19th consecutive winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile who didn’t win the Derby. The last Eclipse Award juvenile winner to win the Derby was Seattle Slew, who was voted champion 2-year-old in 1976.

Vindication is a son of Seattle Slew, the 1977 Triple Crown champion who died last year. Satish Sanan bought Vindication for $2.15 million at a Kentucky yearling auction in 2001. Nadia Sanan, who had been smitten by the colt’s striking appearance, was talking to her father long-distance while he did the bidding.

“Our budget is $1.5 million, and they’re going over that,” Satish Sanan said at one point.

“Dad, just keep going,” Nadia Sanan said.

There were others at the sale who suggested that the Sanans had bought an unsound horse. Satish Sanan chose the name for the colt to defy the naysayers.

Vindication got to the races last July, winning against maidens at Del Mar, and there seemed to be no place to go but up. He reeled off three more wins, capped by a 2 3/4-length victory over another Baffert trainee, Kafwain, in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Arlington Park in October.

Ignoring Daily Racing Form ads run by Daniel Borislow, the owner of the stakes-winning Toccet, that challenged Vindication to run in the Hollywood Futurity in December, Baffert wrapped up on his horse after the Breeders’ Cup and said last week that he would have only two starts before the Kentucky Derby. In eye-catching workouts, Vindication was clocked in 46 4/5 seconds going a half-mile Jan. 18 and in 58 2/5 for five furlongs a week later. Baffert had announced that Mike Smith, despite four flawless rides on Vindication, was being replaced by Jerry Bailey, a Hall of Fame jockey, for the colt’s Kentucky Derby campaign.

Normally, Vindication would have worked again last weekend, but instead he did some light galloping, and there were reports Thursday that he had bruised a foot in the five-furlong workout. The bruise and the foreleg injury are not believed to be related.

“He’s a very valuable horse, and we were not rushing him,” Nadia Sanan said. “We syndicated him [for breeding] in December. How much is he worth? I’m not saying, but I saw where [Blood-Horse magazine] put his value at $30 million.”

There is no immediate replacement for Vindication atop the list of Derby prospects. Toccet, who won the Hollywood Futurity for his fourth stakes win and finished second to Vindication in the Eclipse voting, has had ankle problems and won’t resume serious training until late this month. Sky Mesa, undefeated in three starts last year before missing the Breeders’ Cup because of injury, is several workouts away from his first start as a 3-year-old. Powerful Touch, beaten by a head by Offlee Wild in the Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream Park, has a foot injury that will cause him to miss the Derby.

Baffert, who has won the Derby three times in the last six years, nominated 17 horses for the Triple Crown series. Two of his horses -- Kafwain and Domestic Dispute -- are stakes winners this winter at Santa Anita, and he’s running Truckle Feature there today in the Sham Stakes.

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Juvenile Delinquents

This is what Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winners have done in the Kentucky Derby:

*--* YEAR HORSE DERBY 1984 CHIEF’S CROWN Finished 3rd 1985 TASSO DID NOT RUN 1986 CAPOTE Finished 16th 1987 SUCCESS EXPRESS DID NOT RUN 1988 IS IT TRUE DID NOT RUN 1989 RHYTHM DID NOT RUN 1990 FLY SO FREE Finished 5th 1991 ARAZI Finished 8th 1992 GILDED TIME DID NOT RUN 1993 BROCCO Finished 4th 1994 TIMBER COUNTRY Finished 3rd 1995 UNBRIDLED’S SONG Finished 5th 1996 BOSTON HARBOR DID NOT RUN 1997 FAVORITE TRICK Finished 8th 1998 ANSWER LIVELY Finished 10th 1999 ANEES Finished 13th 2000 MACHO UNO DID NOT RUN 2001 JOHANNESBURG Finished 8th 2002 VINDICATION WILL NOT RUN

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