The team spoke with trainer D. Wayne Lukas today regarding Caldera. Our colt galloped well this morning, and appears to be over the soreness he exhibited coming out of the Bathhouse Row. Given that he X-ray’d completely clean, The Coach’s best guess is that his foot was bothering him.
With all that being said, the plan is to back off a bit on Caldera in the short term. He will skip the Preakness and head to the farm for a couple of weeks just to get on some grass. He’ll be able to stay fit on the exercise machine during his refresher so as not to lose too much time.
The Coach in his expert opinion believes our colt will benefit from a reset and we are 100% behind that decision. This will allow him to grow up and catch up a bit and hopefully come back a stronger horse for the second half of the season and beyond. He’ll also get a check-up from leading vet, Dr. Larry Bramlage, while at the farm just to make sure all bases are covered.
We must keep in mind that horses are not machines and the reason that trainers like Mr. Lukas achieve the reputations they do as great horsemen are because of decisions like this—it’s also the type of management that helped make Seize the Grey what he was last year, and allowed Straight No Chaser to blossom into champion sprinter.
So, we’ll exercise some patience for now but are hopeful that we’ll be rewarded for it down the line. Both the Lukas team and our own team remain extremely high on Caldera and have big expectations for his future and where he could take us.
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