Pool Play tore his tendon Mark Casse confirmed on 21 July – Out for the season, career likely over
Trained by Mark Casse’s Pool Play the six-year-old horse tore his tendon on 20 July which was confirmed by a set of ultrasound conducted by the trainer, who noticed a filling in the leg earlier.
The tear was discovered on the upper part of the left tendon, which means a season ending injury or more likely the end of his six-year-old career.
The Canadian-bred son of Silver Deputy was coming off a spectacular win in the Grade 1 Stephen Foster Handicap at Churchill Downs on 18 June 2011. Pool Play under jockey Miguel Mena for the first time in his career guided the horse to his first graded stakes
win.
It shocked all of his foes, as Pool Play was sent at 36 to 1 to win the Stephen Foster. The longest shot in the field on 11 horses, Pool Play rallied way behind the pack to just creep past Mission Impazible by a neck to win the $561,300 Grade 1 Stephen Foster
Handicap at Churchill Downs.
The dirt experiment by Mark Casse paid off pretty well for Pool Pay, who had exclusively run on turf and synthetic surfaces seemed to have no problem on it and excelled on his debut on dirt.
Mark Casse running Pool Play on dirt in the Grade 1 and winning it was not a wild stab or a whim. It was the third-largest upset in the history of the Stephen Foster.
Casse had big plans for his 6-year-old as he was working an angle no one could see before the Stephen Foster. Mark Casse was working up a plan for Pool Play to get him up to the next step, the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Three time winner of the Sovereign Award, trainer Mike Casse believed that the 1 ¼ mile distance in the Breeders’ Cup Classic was perfect for Pool Play, but on the other hand he was of the view that the Churchill Downs dirt is too kind for horses who are
used to run on turf and synthetic surfaces.
Pool Play’s dirt prowess was still a question mark, but the trainer was confident and considered him for the Breeders’ Cup Classic run on 4 November.
Now that Pool Play is fighting to survive a tear in his tendon, all the plans his trainer made look to go down the drain, it’s an unpredictable sport and even the champion trainer couldn’t have predicted this.
Pool Play’s last training session was a five furlong breeze at Churchill Downs before he got shipped back to Saratoga where he would’ve worked on 20 July if he hadn’t incurred the injury.
Pool Play was also under consideration for the Grade 1 Whitney Handicap.
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