Arch Madness, who has earned more than $2.4 million in his career, is on the comeback trail after missing the second half of 2010
because of a broken splint bone.
The seven-year-old trotter won a qualifier on Feb. 26 at Meadowlands Racetrack, finishing in 1:56.1 with a :27.3 last quarter-mile. Trainer Trond Smedshammer handled the driving.
“We’re just getting him back ready,” Smedshammer said. “There’s no other plan. He hasn’t raced since July, so that’s kind of why I wanted to get him ready a little earlier. He’s going to qualify again and we’ll see. There’s no immediate plan. He doesn’t have any stakes races until the Cutler (in early May). Pocono opens, Chester opens; there are places he can race.”
Last year, Arch Madness won the $220,000 Cutler Memorial at the Meadowlands and set the world record for a five-eighths-mile track by winning in 1:51 at Pocono Downs. But he was sidelined after only nine races by the splint injury, which was discovered following his ninth-place finish in the Maple Leaf Trot at Mohawk Racetrack on July 17.
“He was no good at all,” Smedshammer said. “He wasn’t lame; it’s not a weight-bearing bone. But he’s the kind of horse that if he knows he’s not right, he’s not going to give you much. He’s just going to protect himself. We knew something was wrong. It was an easy decision to quit.”
Smedshammer thought about trying to get Arch Madness ready for the Breeders Crown, which was in October, but decided against it.
“I didn’t feel the leg was a hundred percent set up and I also felt he’d be a little short,” he said. “So I decided not to bother.”
Two-time O'Brien Award winner Arch Madness, owned by Marc Goldberg and Willow Pond LLC, has won 19 of 58 career races and hit the board 40 times. He won the 2007 Breeders Crown for three-year-old male trotters and the 2008 Maple Leaf Trot -- both in stakes record time.
Smedshammer believes the horse will return to stakes-level form.
“If he doesn’t, he won’t race much,” Smedshammer said. “He’s not going to be an overnight horse. He’ll decide where he’s going to race and what he’s going to race in, if he’s good. I’m sure he’ll come back.
“There are no plans for anything else now. We’re getting him ready, that’s all we’re doing.”
This story courtesy of Harness Racing Communications, a division of the U.S. Trotting Association. For more information, visit ustrotting.com.