Woodbine: Strait of Dover will miss Breeders’ Stakes, rest of season with suspensory injury

Michael Burns

Queen's Plate winner Strait of Dover will miss the rest of the season due to a suspensory injury.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Strait of Dover, who was an impressive winner of the Queen’s Plate and was looming as the horse to beat in next Sunday’s $500,000 Breeders’ Stakes at Woodbine, will not see action again this season.

“He had a little filling in a suspensory after his last work,” said Danny Vella, who trains the British Columbia-bred Strait of Dover for Wally and Terry Leong. “We scanned it, and it looks like he’ll recover, but he’s done for the year.

“He’s one of those horses who’s been perfectly sound, nothing wrong with him. It’s kind of a shock, but it happens.”

The Breeders’ Stakes, a 1 1/2-mile turf race, follows the 1 1/4-mile Queen’s Plate and Fort Erie’s 1 3/16-mile Prince of Wales as the final leg of the Triple Crown for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds.

Strait of Dover , who had shown an aversion to dirt in his early races at Hastings and while training in Florida this winter, bypassed the Prince of Wales to train up to the Breeders’.

“If the horse comes back next year, I think he can win a Grade 1,” said Vella, who had sent out Strait of Dover to win the 1 1/16-mile Marine Stakes and a seven-furlong first –level allowance race in his only other outings this year.

“I think he’s that good.”