Jesus' Team, in bid for comeback, faces a new obstacle

Jesus’ Team faces another obstacle if he is to regain the form that allowed him to rise from the claiming ranks into a prime Grade 1 contender two years ago.

Trainer Jose D’Angelo said the bay 5-year-old suffered a deep gash in his left front hoof when he stumbled badly leaving the starting gate in a Dec. 8 allowance optional claiming race at Gulfstream Park.

Jesus’ Team was making his second start after a 15-month layoff. The time away from competition initially was caused by the need for surgery to remove a chip from his left front ankle.

His recovery was set back by salmonella and then laminitis that affected both front feet. He lost a tremendous amount of weight and all of his conditioning during the ordeal.

The seemingly star-crossed Jesus’ Team and jockey Luis Saez did well to recover from the near fall on Dec. 8. They trailed throughout the 1 1/16-mile contest, however, and Saez, in sensing his mount's discomfort, eased him entering the stretch. The horse walked off.

In the first start of his comeback, the son of Tapiture showed only how badly he needed the race when he finished a lackluster ninth in a one-mile allowance optional claimer on Nov. 12 at Gulfstream, his home base.

D’Angelo insisted he is not discouraged by what has happened so far during the comeback bid. He is convinced the Dec. 8 outcome would have been very different without the misfortune at the start.

“I don’t know if he was going to win the last race,” he said. “But for sure he would have run big.”

Now, D’Angelo and his staff are working furiously to heal the gash that represents the latest complication in the horse’s comeback. He is concerned about the fitness that is being lost every day the horse remains in his stall and hopes Jesus’ Team can resume training in five or six more days. At the same time, he admitted that is nothing more than an educated guess.

“That happened at the start, and now we have to wait,” he said. “I don’t know how long.”

D’Angelo remains confident that he can regain the horse who allowed him to demonstrate his training ability on a national stage. He was a leading trainer in Venezuela before he needed very much to establish himself anew when he ventured to the U.S. in 2019.

At first, Jesus’ Team seemed like an unlikely candidate to help him accomplish that tall task. He needed five starts to break his maiden, doing so for a $32,000 claiming tag on March 18, 2020. Then a schedule radically impacted by the pandemic delayed the customary spring classics and gave the then 3-year-old much-needed time to mature. He did the rest.

He stamped himself as one of the finer members of his class when he came in third in the Oct. 3 Preakness at Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course. He backed up that result by placing second to Knicks Go in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile and then in the Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1) to begin the 2021 campaign. Knicks Go went on to be horse of the year in 2021.

D’Angelo had hoped that Jesus’ Team would be sharp enough off the prolonged layoff to merit consideration for the $3 million Pegasus on Jan. 28 at Gulfstream. The horse is a local fan favorite after compiling a record of 19: 3-5-3 with $1,341,410 in earnings.

The trainer always understood, though, how difficult that would be.

“For me as a trainer, you have two races that are very hard,” he said. “Maiden, first time out and coming from a layoff. These races have to be hard for the horses.”

D’Angelo is encouraged in knowing that Jesus’ Team is “completely healthy” beyond the hoof injury. And although D’Angelo is not closing the door on the Pegasus, he knows that is asking a lot.

“He needs to run to get sharp,” he said of his sidelined former standout.