I’ll Have Another will not race for the Triple Crown at the Belmont Stakes in New York on Saturday, bitterly ending a fairy tale run for the Orange County team that brought the horse from relative obscurity to national prominence.
Trainer Doug O’Neill made the shocking announcement Friday morning on the Dan Patrick Show.
The horse, owned by Anaheim executive and Sunset Beach resident Paul Reddam, was in contention to break a 34-year-old drought in the famed Triple Crown after running nearly identical races in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes to overcome the leader down the stretch.
Affirmed was the last horse to capture the elusive crown in 1978.
I’ll Have Another was pegged as the heavy favorite going into the Belmont, opening at 4-5 odds in the last and most grueling leg of the Triple Crown run at a mile-and-a-half.
The injury was a swollen left front tendon that could end the horse’s career.
I’ll Have Another had beaten plenty of odds just to get to this point.
He was a 43-1 long shot in February’s $200,000 Robert B. Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita and blew past the field, setting up an intriguing story line before the Santa Anita Derby, the pre-eminent race on the West Coast.
The horse had $151,000 in earnings going into the Santa Anita Derby and needed more to guarantee a start at the Kentucky Derby. That meant a finish of no worse than second at Santa Anita.
“That’s what, in part, made it so exciting,” owner Paul Reddam told the Business Journal at the time.
I’ll Have Another won that race and went on to capture the Derby as a 15-1 long shot and then the Preakness as a 3-1 favorite, both in dramatic fashion, coming from behind on the final stretch run to inch out victories.
Reddam, who owns Anaheim-based mortgage and consumer lender CashCall Inc, purchased the colt for a mere $35,000 about a year ago from Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. in Florida in a 2-year-old in training sale.
Trainer Doug O’Neill’s brother, Dennis, scouted I’ll Have Another for Reddam, who counts some 25 race horses and 50 broodmares and babies in his stable.
I’ll Have Another’s story, coupled with the charismatic nature of the somewhat controversial Reddam and O’Neill team, captured the attention of racing enthusiasts and casual fans alike leading up to race against history.
“This is extremely tough for all of us,” Doug O’Neill said at a press conference at Belmont Park that just concluded. “I feel so sorry for the whole team. We’ve had such an amazing run.”
