BY BROCK SHERIDAN

According to a report by David Grening in Daily Racing Form, Florida-bred Reef Runner has been sidelined for the remainder of the year with a soft-tissue injury.

According to the article, trainer David Fawkes said Reef Runner was diagnosed with the injury following a four-furlong work over the Gulfstream Park synthetic track on July 4. Fawkes said in the story that the multiple graded stakes winner is resting at Nick Esler’s Sandhurst Thoroughbreds in Morriston, Florida.

Reef Runner was preparing for his next start in the $300,000 Troy Stakes (Grade 2) at Saratoga Race Course on August 9.

“It’s certainly not career ending. I think he’ll make it back, but I want to do the right thing for him and I want to give him full time,” Fawkes told Grening. “Trying to push him to make a race—even though he has the Win and You’re In—isn’t the right thing to do.”

An earner of $2,177,580, Reef Runner has won nine with five seconds and five thirds in 25 career starts. Reef Runner is a homebred for Alex and JoAnn Lieblong of Conway, Arkansas and was two-for-three this year with victories in the Grade 1 Jaipur at Saratoga on June 6 and in the US$2 million 1351 Turf Sprint presented by Quiddiya City (Group 2) at King Abdulaziz Racecourse in Riyadh on February 14.

He is by the Lieblong’s The Big Beast out of Paradise Bay, by Blame.

Return to the July 17 issue of Wire to Wire