Word comes from the stable of trainer Bob McIntosh that last year’s O’Brien Award winner in the rookie pacing colt division, Nebupanezzar, has suffered an injury that will keep him on the sidelines for a good portion

of the summer.

“I had him scheduled to make his first start for the OSS around the 1st of July, but about a week after we made that decision and everything I came in one morning and he had a slight bump on the outside of his tendon,” said McIntosh, who was voted Canada’s Trainer of the Year in 2008. “It was very minute, but it was there and it was a little sensitive to pinch. I had my vet do an ultrasound just to be cautious, and he showed a slight tear in the tendon sheath.”

The discovery on Nebupanezzar prompted McIntosh to seek the opinion of one of the best known and widely respected surgeons in the world, Dr. Larry Bramlage of the Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, KY.

“I talked to Dr. Larry Bramlage from Rood & Riddle because I have a lot of faith in him and his opinion, and so we got the horse down to him and he re-ultra sounded him,” said McIntosh. “His opinion was if we drove on we were going to do some damage to the actual tendon fibres. As of right now there’s no damage to the actual tendon fibres.

“In his mind, the best thing to do was to make a small incision and drain the blood off the small contusion and give the horse some time,” he added. “It was a bad day for me, of course, because he’s the kind of horse that is going to go to the big time. We had to deal with and we have to do the best thing for the horse.”

The three-year-old gelded son of No Pan Intended – Western Wonder, who races for owner/breeder Bob Glazer’s Peter Pan Stables Inc. of Pepper Pike, OH, put together a 10-2-0 record from 14 trips postward in his freshman campaign. The career winner of $1,088,050 captured a pair of $120,000 OSS Gold Series Finals, the $300,000 OSS Super Final, the $820,000 Governor’s Cup Final and he finished second in the $1 million final of the Metro Pace.

“Presently he’s swimming every day trying to heal his cardiovascular,” said McIntosh. “And in about another three weeks to a month we’ll send him back to Dr. Bramlage to re-ultra sound the tendon and if he gets a clean bill of health we’ll resume training and hopefully be ready for some time in August.

“He was named after an ancient Babylonian warrior going way back; so he was pretty aptly named because he is quite a warrior himself,” he added. “He’s not a big colt, but he’s got a tremendous gait to him. The rest just comes from his heart and his will to win.”