Met Mile winner Raging Torrent may or may not be retired

The racing career of Raging Torrent, who won the Grade 1 Met Mile last month at Saratoga, is in limbo after he developed swelling behind his left front knee. He is getting some rest and evaluation as his connections decide whether he will resume racing or go to stud.

“It’s nothing major, so we’re in discussions of his future,” trainer Doug O’Neill told the Del Mar media-relations team. “It looks like he’s going to be retired, but he’s sound and he looks great. We’re just playing it by ear.”

Flashback: Raging Torrent upsets Met Mile.

Co-owner Craig Dado told Daily Racing Form that the two-time Grade 1 winner who won last year’s Pat O’Brien (G2) at Del Mar had been retired with a suspensory injury that had been diagnosed in the weeks since the June 7 running of the Met Mile.

The colt owned by Yuesheng Zhang and Dado made his first big splash in an overnight stakes at Churchill Downs last year. O’Neill brought him back to Del Mar, where the colt broke his maiden as a 2-year-old, and he crashed The Chosen Vron’s party and upset the popular Cal-bred in the Pat O’Brien.

He went on to run seventh in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint only to rebound nicely and win the Malibu (G1) on opening day Dec. 26 at Santa Anita.

O’Neill then shipped him overseas to Dubai, where he rewarded his connections with an impressive victory in the Godolphin Mile (G2) on the Dubai World Cup undercard. Raging Torrent returned to the States, recuperated at Santa Anita and then shipped east to capture the Met Mile at Saratoga on Belmont Stakes day.

The 4-year old son of Maximus Mischief recently was ranked third in the nation behind Mindframe and Sovereignty in the National Thoroughbred Racing Association’s top Thoroughbreds poll.

“He came out of the Met Mile in great shape,” O’Neill said, “and then just in the last few weeks at Santa Anita we discovered it. It’s very subtle. He’s going to require a little time.”

There were thoughts he might run at Del Mar this summer. Next weekend’s Bing Crosby (G1) was one possibility and-or a defense of his title in the Pat O’Brien in August. But now all of those plans are scratched.

“He could come back and race,” O’Neill said. “It’s just a matter of discussions and negotiations and all the stuff that I’m not really privy to. In the next few weeks the owners will make a decision on what’s going on.”

O’Neill says Raging Torrent’s stallion future and where he might stand also are undecided at this time.

Raging Torrent has earned $1,797,400 from a record of 14: 7-1-2. Out of Violence mare Violent Wave, he was bred in Kentucky by Rodney Winkler and Alfonso Mazzetti.

Dado told DRF’s Steve Andersen that stallion farms are in talks to stand Raging Torrent in time for the breeding season next spring.