It could be a long road to return to the Open ranks for O’Brien Award winner Secrets Nephew, who according to owner Lyle MacArthur is recovering from
a pneumonia-like condition that he has dealt with in the past.
The seven-year-old son of Camluck-Table For Seven last raced in the opening leg of the Spring Pacing Championship at Woodbine Racetrack on March 28, 2009 for MacArthur, who told Trot Insider the career winner of $1,193,648 seemed fine right up until the time the starter blew the horn and called the horses to turn to the gate.
“Normally he likes to get right up on the gate, but he was three or four lengths off it that night; he’s not like that,” said MacArthur, who promptly pulled the pacer up in the first turn. “I had a suspicion there was something bugging him the week before. I wasn’t happy with him even though he won. I took a couple of bloods on him that week and they came back good. I believed the results of the blood tests even though my instincts told me otherwise.
“He ate good and felt good, but I opted not to train him that week,” added MacArthur, who co-owns and bred the pacer with Frank Grandinetti of Amherst, New York. “If I would have trained him, things might have shown up before I raced him in the first leg of the Spring Pacing Championship.”
According to MacArthur, Secrets Nephew cooled out fine after being pulled up that night, and he seemed fine for about the next three days. After that, however, the 36-time winner ran into some problems.
“His temperature started to creep up a bit and a few things showed up on him,” added MacArthur. He was being treated to try and rectify the problem, but his temperature kept going up and down and he was in pain. It got to the point where he didn’t even want to lay down in his stall so I decided to take him to Guelph for some x-rays.
“He was diagnosed with something that is close to pneumonia or pleurisy,” he added. “It wasn’t a problem directly in his lungs, but it was painful between his lungs and his ribs. It was killing him, and that’s why he didn’t want to lay down. He was in Guelph for a week, and seems to be progressing now that he’s back home.”
Secrets Nephew battled with similar problems during his three-year-old season, and as a result it took him six weeks to get back to the races. MacArthur figures it will be tougher to get his star student back this time – if he makes it back at all.
“His temperature has been good, but he really lost a lot of weight,” he said. “It will be a lot tougher to get him back into shape and get the muscle on him now that he’s older. He’ll miss the summer, and he probably won’t even get hooked to jog until the first of June. And if he doesn’t make it back, I hope down the road he can stand stud somewhere. He has the credentials to stand somewhere.”