Maiden win a long time coming for Desani's Chance

Well, that took a little doing.

Desani’s Chance began his career in February 2011. Last Sunday in the seventh race at Arlington, he won for the first time.

Desani’s Chance is a 10-year-old now. In July, he returned from a layoff – a very long layoff. It had been nearly seven years since Desani’s Chance had started in a race.

Patti Miller trains Desani’s Chance for owner Nancy Susmarski, who was determined to get her horse back to the races even after he strained tendons in both forelegs. Miller said Desani’s Chance had stem-cell therapy on his second tendon strain and had gotten plenty of time and care during his extremely extended layoff. He was put into offtrack training at an Arlington-area farm last fall and progressed nicely, coming into Miller’s barn at Hawthorne in March.

Desani’s Chance was scratched from his intended comeback run in June after developing a sinus infection, but his first two starts back this summer proved that despite the highly unusual circumstances, he was fit to be a racehorse.

“The owner and her whole family were there Sunday,” said Miller. “It was like they’d won the Kentucky Derby.”

Arlington stewards got some calls when Desani’s Chance first showed up in the entries in June. The stewards contacted Miller, and a state vet came to look at the gelding. No one could find a reason for Desani’s Chance not to compete, and Desani’s chance, who got a respectable 63 Beyer Speed Figure in winning a $12,500 maiden claimer under leading rider Jose Valdivia, came out of this race better than his first two.

“First two times, he didn’t eat well for a day and a half, but this time, he ate up everything,” Miller said Wednesday. “He goes back to the track tomorrow. If he’s fine then, we’ll probably run back at Hawthorne.

◗ Prado’s Sweet Ride suffered no injuries during an incident early in the One Dreamer Stakes last Saturday at Kentucky Downs, according to trainer Chris Block. The mare either stepped in a hole or soft spot, became unbalanced, and was pulled up by jockey Julien Leparoux. Though she showed no sign of lameness on the course, she was vanned off the track as a precautionary measure. Prado’s Sweet Ride, one of the better Illinois-bred turf mares of recent years, will become a broodmare in 2019 but probably will race again this fall.