Trainer Chad Brown told the Thoroughbred Daily News this week that Grade 1 winner Jack Christopher would be hard-pressed to make it into the field for this year's Kentucky Derby. The 3-year-old son of Munnings remains at least two weeks away from joining Brown in South Florida, the trainer said, as he's still recovering from an injury that kept him out of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile.
A winner on debut at Saratoga, Jack Christopher returned to capture the G1 Champagne at Belmont Park before shipping West, where he would likely have been the favorite in the World Championships race. Instead, the colt was scratched and Dr. Larry Bramlage wound up surgically inserting a screw to repair a stress fracture in his left shin.
Brown is not optimistic about having Jack Christopher ready for the Run for the Roses.
“He's going to be up against it, that's for sure,” Brown told the TDN. “I don't want to rule anything out until I put my hands on him, but he's certainly behind. To get him to go a mile-and-a-quarter I'm going to need to have something under his belt. We'll see where he takes us and if he doesn't make [the Derby] we have several other races we'd love to target with him.”
Read more at the Thoroughbred Daily News.
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