Ankle injury knocks Leave the Light On off Triple Crown trail

Leave the Light On will be forced to miss the Triple Crown due to an ankle injury (NYRA/Adam Coglianese Photography)

An ankle injury suffered in his most recent workout has
knocked Grade 2 winner Leave the Light On (Horse Greeley) off the Triple Crown trail.

Trained by Chad Brown for Seth Klarman’s Klaravich Stable
and William H. Lawrence, Leave the Light On will have surgery next week at the
Rood and Riddle Equine Clinic in Lexington, Kentucky.

“Leave the Light On emerged from his latest workout with an
injury to his right hind ankle. It requires surgery and that’s probably going to
put him on the shelf for a couple months,” Brown explained. “It’s terrible news for
all of us associated with the horse. To already have 10 points in the bank
(toward a Kentucky Derby [G1] starting berth), it
really stings.

“We always put the horse first and, thankfully, this is not only not
life-threatening, it’s not even career-threatening,” Brown added. “It’s a
situation where the timing is very unfortunate and you never want these horses
to be injured, but this seems fixable. Hopefully, Leave the Light On will
recover and be back in big races in the fall.”

The three-year-old chestnut had been training
steadily at Palm Meadows, Gulfstream Park’s satellite training facility in Palm
Beach County, including a five-furlong breeze in 1:00 4/5 on Sunday, January 25. He was being
pointed to the $400,000 Fountain of Youth S. (G2) on February 21 at
Gulfstream for his three-year-old debut.

Leave the Light On didn’t make his career debut until last
fall, breaking his maiden by 4 1/2 lengths in his second start at Belmont Park and posting a front-running,
half-length victory in the 1 1/8-mile Remsen S. (G2) on November 29 at Aqueduct.

“There’s a lot of nice races out there and with our
program, we always look at the big picture if possible,” Brown said. “We try to
look at the whole career of the horse. Of course, our first choice was to go to
the Derby. That’s the race we want to win and everyone wants to win, but not at
the expense of the horse. If the horse needs to be stopped on and cleaned up,
then that’s what we’re going to do. Hopefully he has a long, successful career
in our barn.”