Disarm, runner-up in Travers, will not race again in 2023
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SARATOG SPRINGS, N.Y. - Disarm, runner-up to Arcangelo in the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers here on Aug. 26, will not race again this year, trainer Steve Asmussen said Saturday.
“Just came out of it pretty jammed up,” said Asmussen, who added the horse has been sent to Dr. Larry Bramlage at the Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky., for further evaluation.
Disarm, a second-out winner at Saratoga last summer, had a busy 3-year-old campaign with seven starts from February through August.
He finished second in the Louisiana Derby in March but had to run in the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland in April to make sure he earned enough points to qualify for the Kentucky Derby. Disarm ran a respectable fourth in the Derby, 4 1/2 lengths behind Mage.
Disarm’s lone win of the year came in the Grade 3 Matt Winn Stakes, a race scheduled to be run at Churchill Downs, but was transferred to Ellis Park owing to several equine fatalities at Churchill in the week leading up to the Kentucky Derby.
After finishing fourth in the Jim Dandy at Saratoga on July 29, Asmussen equipped Disarm with blinkers for the Travers and he ran a game second, squeezing through an opening along the rail and coming within a length of Arcangelo.
“It’s quite obvious how much of a future he has, but he has to be 100 percent,” Asmussen said. “He’s good, he’s so close to being great.”
Disarm is a son of Gun Runner owned and bred by Ron Winchell.
Asmussen said that after his evaluation at Rood and Riddle, Disarm will get some time off at Winchell’s Kentucky farm.
“We’ll see on his evaluation what he recommends from a time standpoint,” Asmussen said.
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