Multiple grade I winner Jackson Bend appeared to be feeling fine Aug. 19 following an eventful morning on the Oklahoma training track at Saratoga Race Course in New York the day before.
"He's doing good. I was playing with him a little while ago," said the 5-year-old horse's Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito. "He was trying to bite people all morning. He had a lot of well-wishers this morning. Rosie Napravnik came over to visit him, and he was trying to bite her. He's a funny horse."
Owned by Robert LaPenta and breeder Fred Brei of Jacks or Better Farm, Jackson Bend was involved in a collision with another horse, the 7-year-old Little Nick, Aug. 18. Neither horse sustained any injuries in the incident, but Jackson Bend was shaken up.
"I hope everything works out good," Zito said. "I walked him today. I'll probably take him for a trail ride tomorrow, and then we'll see if toward the end of the week we can get him back to the track. He had a little swelling on his left side; that's where he fell. Other than that, he is fine and feeling real good."
The son of Hear No Evil has been pointed toward a title defense of the Forego (gr. I) Sept. 1, but those plans are now in question.
"It would be an amazing story, a miracle, if he could make the Forego," Zito said. "We just have to take it one day at a time. We never say never."
Zito marveled at the circumstances surrounding the Aug. 18 events: A horse named Little Nick collided with his stable star; Little Nick is a half brother to Little Mike, winner of the Aug. 18 Arlington Million (gr. IT); and in the fifth race Aug. 18 at Saratoga, Zito ran second to a horse trained by Anthony Quartarolo, who trains Little Nick.
"It just shows you that racing is so complicated," Zito said. "That's a good quote: Racing is so complicated, and it's so intertwined. Like they say, it's not an exact science and no one has any lock on it. No one can say, 'This is this or this is that or this is this or this is that.' You can't say that."