Owner: Rich Strike is on verge of retirement after new injury

Rich Strike, the 80-1 winner of the 2022 Kentucky Derby, is “99 percent” certain of being retired after another injury setback at Saratoga, owner Rick Dawson said Sunday.

“I’ll know exactly what I’m going to do in 60 days, but I would say that we’re 99 percent at this point probably moving to retirement and trying to work out some kind of stallion deal for him,” Dawson told Horse Racing Nation in a telephone interview from Oklahoma.

Dawson said a ligament tear was discovered in Rich Strike’s left front leg this month after trainer Bill Mott felt some heat there after a training session at Saratoga.

“It’s in a different location from where it was injured previously,” Dawson said. “Now it’s a different tear in a different part of the suspensory ligament.”

The 5-year-old son of Keen Ice was sent back to Margaux Farm in Midway, Ky., where he went last year after being diagnosed with proximal suspensory desmitis in both front legs. The farm is a 10-mile drive from Dr. Larry Bramlage at Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington.

“They’re treating him with a certain dosage of (the corticosteroid) prednisolone for two weeks,” Dawson said. “Then a half-dosage for another two weeks, and then let him hang out for 30 days, and then take another ultrasound.”

Rich Strike was going through what Dawson said was intensified training in hopes he could be brought back to racing, which he has not done in more than 15 months.

Out of training for more than a year, Rich Strike got back on the work tab last month. Mott breezed him four times, stretching him to a 50.88-second half-mile Aug. 7 on Saratoga’s Oklahoma dirt training track.

Asked after that most recent workout if he had a comeback race in mind, Mott said, “We are a long way away right now.”

This latest setback had Dawson leaning harder toward retiring Rich Strike from training and selling him this fall to start a breeding career next spring.

“I have no interest in some long-term, drawn-out rehab,” he said. “I haven’t talked to Dr. Bramlage about what his expectations are if everything goes perfect. ... When I started this a year-and-a-half ago, I was pretty much convinced we had a 20 to 25 percent chance.”

Dawson transferred Rich Strike to Mott after trainer Eric Reed resigned in May 2023. Dawson and Reed differed about the direction of a proposed documentary about the unlikely Kentucky Derby victory that thrust both men into racing’s limelight.

Rich Strike has not won since that Derby. He raced six times between the 2022 Belmont Stakes and the 2023 Alysheba (G2), hitting the board only in his second-place finish in the 2022 Lukas Classic (G2) at Churchill Downs.

Originally trained by Joe Sharp for breeder-owner Calumet Farm, Rich Strike was picked up on a $30,000 claim by Reed on Dawson’s behalf after his only other victory in September 2021. Bred in Kentucky, he has a record of 14: 2-1-3 with earnings totaling $2,526,809.