The problem was discovered after Drosselmeyer breezed a half-mile in :49 2/5 at Bemont on July 4.
“He was doing fine and we breezed him last Sunday and he came back a little stiff, kind of shuffly,” Mott said. “We had him back to track, but he wasn’t moving and striding out as well as we would have liked him to. He was kind of crabby-going. We took radiographs, and they show nothing significant.
“Sometimes they get bone bruising, and a bone scan will help confirm if that’s what he has. I see no reason why he won’t make it back, but I doubt he’ll be back this year. It’s just something that needs time. It’s tough to fast-track Mother Nature."
Mott added: "I wish he’d be there to compete in the Jim Dandy (gr. II) and Travers (gr. I) to see where he stacked up, because I think he deserves to run with those horses, and we believe he has a bright future. But not right now. You can’t go into those kinds of races unless you feel they’re 100%, and what it amounts to is that he’s not 100%.”
Drosselmeyer, owned by WinStar Farm and bred by Aaron and Marie Jones, captured the June 5 Belmont Stakes by three-quarters of a length at odds of 13-1.
The son of Distorted Humor –Golden Ballet, by Moscow Ballet, has a lifetime record three wins, three seconds and two thirds for earnings of $801,170 in nine starts.
