Filly Breaks Down After Skipped Warm Up

- The horses were very late coming out to the track for the Stormy Frolic Stakes at Calder, and it seemed as if a delay was in order. Christina Olivares, hosting along with Bob Baedeker on TVG, was anticipating that the race would be at least a few minutes late; they were as surprised as I that the fillies went straight to the starting gate. And that's not an exaggeration. They literally stepped onto the track from the runway, paraded up the stretch, and loaded right into the gate; looking at the track diagram in the Form, it's positioned about halfway. "I'm surprised they didn't give these fillies more time to stretch their legs," commented Ms. Olivares. They speculated that, being the featured race, they wanted to get it off on time. I was thinking that the safety of the horses is more important.

So I hope that the lack of a proper warm up wasn't the reason that Dantrelle Light broke down while leading in the stretch. She took a bad step and sustained an injury to one of her front legs - I'm not going to go back and watch it again to determine which one, as it looked pretty bad and was difficult to watch. I didn't hear either of the TVG commentators connect the injury with the quickie post parade. But that's a question that I certainly expect to be raised.