By Jessica Martini
Winchell Thoroughbreds' Magnitude (Not This Time), who catapulted himself to the top of the list of GI Kentucky Derby contenders with a jaw-dropping 9 3/4-length victory in the GII Risen Star Stakes Saturday, has been forced off the Triple Crown trail by an ankle chip. Winchell Thoroughbreds' racing manager David Fiske confirmed the news first reported by Daily Racing Form's Marcus Hersh Tuesday.
“He came out of the race Saturday good,” Fiske said. “He ate up all his feed Saturday night. They took him out and gave him a bath and he seemed to be just fine Sunday. Sometime, I believe [Tuesday] morning, he was walking and somebody saw him just kind of give a little bit. And they checked further and decided to shoot some pictures and it appeared to be a chip. We got him scheduled for surgery Wednesday.”
Dr. Larry Bramlage, who will perform the surgery Wednesday in Kentucky, gave a positive prognosis for the colt.
“The brief assessment from Dr. Bramlage was that the prognosis was good,” Fiske said. “He shouldn't be away for any prolonged period of time. Just using the previous cases we've done, it's usually a couple of weeks in a stall, three weeks hand walking, sometimes they get turned out for three or four weeks and sometimes, they go right back into training after hand walking. So probably somewhere between five weeks and nine weeks before he trains again.”
Dismissed at 43-1 in the Risen Star, Magnitude took the field wire-to-wire and completed the nine furlongs in 1:48.85.
“The performance on Saturday was one of the most exciting 3-year-old performances I've seen in a while,” Fiske said. “And not just because he was our horse. And not because he won by 9 3/4 lengths. But all of the other things, the stakes record, Randy Moss's comment that it was probably the fastest 1 1/8 miles ever run by a 3-year-old at Fair Grounds, and the 108 Beyer. I was listening to Andy Beyer on [Steve] Byk's show yesterday, he was saying, 'I don't know what to do with it, usually I just discount those kind of performances, but I don't know that looked legit.' It was just exciting. We always thought he was good, but everything conspired to come together on Saturday evening–whether it was a favorable place on the racetrack, or being forward was where you needed to be, or whatever it was. It all came together in one of the most exciting performances I've seen. And then today everything conspired to go south.”
🌹 #13 MAGNITUDE ($88.40) pulls a shocking upset in the $500,000 Risen Star Stakes (G2) at @fairgroundsnola. The three-year-old Not This Time (@TMStallions) colt earns 50 Kentucky Derby points for trainer Steve Asmussen and owners Winchell Thoroughbreds. @_benacurtis was aboard. pic.twitter.com/Ibs0FjTg9a
— FanDuel Racing (@FanDuel_Racing) February 16, 2025
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