follow us onConcrete Rose at Margaux Farm With Ankle Injury
The daughter of Twirling Candy was injured while playing coming off the track.
Millionaire Concrete Rose, who missed the second half of 2019 with a fractured right foreleg, will have her return delayed by another setback, an ankle injury, trainer Rusty Arnold reported May 21.
The winner of last year’s Belmont Oaks Invitational Stakes (G1T) for owners Ashbrook Farm and BBN Racing had been training at Palm Meadows Training Center in South Florida toward an intended spring return.
“She was playing one day coming off the racetrack and bucking around and jumping, and came down a little bit funny,” Arnold said of an April incident. “She showed some heat in an ankle, and we had to give her a little bit of time off. It’s what I would call a severe wrench.”
Arnold said the 4-year-old daughter of Twirling Candy is recuperating at Margaux Farm in Midway, Ky., receiving ice treatment and utilizing the farm’s Aquatred, an equine treadmill in which a horse can exercise while partially submerged in water. There is no timetable for her return.
Last year at 3, Concrete Rose won all four of her starts, exclusively in stakes. She began the year with a victory in the Florida Oaks (G3T), followed it by beating Newspaperofrecord in the Edgewood Stakes Presented by Forcht Bank (G3T), and then won the Belmont Oaks Invitational Stakes (G1T) and Saratoga Oaks Invitational Stakes over the summer.
Though Concrete Rose is sidelined, three of Arnold’s other stable stars are gearing up for races. Graded stakes-winning turf sprinters Morticia and Leinster are aimed for open allowance races at Churchill Downs May 28 and May 29, respectively, and another top-class grass sprinter, Totally Boss, could race in the meet.
“He came in a little later. He might have to wait for the next go-around,” Arnold said.
Leinster and Totally Boss were both outrun in the Nov. 2 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint (G1T) at Santa Anita Park in their most recent outings. Morticia ran Oct. 11 at Keeneland, finishing second to Oleksandra in the Buffalo Trace Franklin County Stakes (G3T).
This month, Arnold shifted his stable from Florida to Kentucky after racing in the state was authorized at Churchill Downs with COVID-19 safety protocols in place.