Report: Westchester winner Messier is sidelined with knee chip
Messier, who won the Grade 3 Westchester on May 3, is recovering from surgery to remove a knee chip.
The surgery and his recovery were reported Monday by David Grening of Daily Racing Form. According to the report, trainer Rick Dutrow hopes to bring him back to the races later this year.
"We're being led to believe he's going to come back as good and he's got a chance of being better," Dutrow told DRF. "There's always that chance of that not working out at all. Then he'll live a great life; that horse is in a no-lose situation.
Messier has a record of 14: 4-5-1 with career earnings of $593,690. A fixture on the California spur of the 2022 Kentucky Derby trail, he won the 2021 Bob Hope (G3) and 2022 Robert B. Lewis (G3) and was second in the 2021 Los Alamitos Futurity (G2) and 2022 Santa Anita Derby (G1). In the barns of Bob Baffert and briefly Tim Yakteen during that West Coast phase of his career, he made one start at Woodbine for Kevin Attard before moving to Dutrow's barn for his 2024 campaign.
His win in the Westchester was his first victory since the 2022 Robert B. Lewis. But he ran second in both of his other starts for Dutrow, in an optional-claiming allowance race at Laurel in January and in the Excelsior Stakes on March 30 at Aqueduct.