Oxbow Emerged From Haskell With Soft-Tissue Injury

Preakness winner Oxbow emerged from his fourth-place finish in Sunday's Haskell with a soft-tissue injury, Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas reported Monday morning.

Oxbow returned on Monday to Lukas' barn at the Oklahoma training track, where his progress will be closely monitored. He was pulled up shortly after crossing the wire in the Haskell.

"The X-rays were all perfectly clean," Lukas said. "It's what you guys would call an ankle sprain, it looks like. I was more concerned with a condylar [fracture] or something like that but, boy, he had a pretty set of X-rays. It's amazing. For a horse with that many [starts], they were really clean."

Ridden by Hall of Famer Gary Stevens, Oxbow led through fractions of 23.90 and 48.22 seconds, going six furlongs in 1:12.43 before dropping back. He managed to hang on for fourth, a head in front of Pick of the Litter.

"He just wasn't traveling comfortably," Lukas said. "Gary overreacted probably a little bit, but the good thing is we X-rayed him from top to bottom and everything's clean. [Stevens] thought at the half-mile that he was starting to get uncomfortable, and he just kind of held him from there."

Lukas was unsure of the timetable for Oxbow's return, leaving his status for the Travers uncertain. Sixth in the Kentucky Derby, he finished second to Palace Malice in the Belmont Stakes.

"You never know," Lukas said. "Horses react differently to different situations. After seeing everything yesterday, I felt comfortable in that I didn't rule out the Travers, but that's probably the reality of it. I would say the fall and looking toward the Breeders' Cup seems reasonable."

Lukas expects to be represented in the Travers by Grade 2 winner Will Take Charge, who ran second to Palace Malice in Saturday's Jim Dandy.