Wise Dan won Horse of the Year honors in 2012 and 2013. On Monday, the horse was retired after an injury was discovered while he trained for the $1,000,000 Woodbine Mike on Sunday.
"He'd been training lights out. But, we noticed some filling in his tendon this morning when we were giving him a bath," trainer Charles LoPresti told officials at Woodbine. "The vet suggested we scan it and it turns out he has a tear on the outside edge of his tendon."
Wise Dan had been seeking to return after surgery cut short his season in 2014.
"Mr. Fink and I talked about it and we've all decided he should be retired at this age. There's no point trying to bring him back again," LoPresti said. "I expect he'll retire to our farm here in Kentucky. He'll be turned out with his brother Successful Dan.
"We're not sure how it happened. We were four days away from shipping up to Woodbine and he had trained like a monster this morning. He never took a bad step, it was just something I noticed while giving him a bath.
"We were trying to get to the Breeders' Cup. ... We were so excited about coming up but it wasn't meant to be."
The 8-year-old chestnut gelding won 23 of 31 career starts, while banking in excess of $7.5-million in purse earnings.
