Odysseus euthanized after bout with laminitis

This year’s Tampa Bay Derby winner, Odysseus, was euthanized Monday after developing complications from laminitis.

A 3-year-old Malibu Moon colt, Odysseus had been undergoing treatment for colitis at Hagyard Equine Medical Institute in Lexington, Ky.

Odysseus was pulled from the Triple Crown trail after the April 10 Blue Grass Stakes. He hyper-extended a knee in that race, according to owner Satish Sanan, and finished ninth behind the winner, Stately Victor. Before the onset of Odysseus’s laminitis, Sanan had hoped the colt could return to his racing career.

“Our family is deeply saddened by the loss of Odysseus,” Sanan said in a statement issued Tuesday. “He gave us thrills as a racehorse, and it is a big loss for us not to see him fulfill his racing potential.”

Kentucky-bred Odysseus was a son of the Conquistador Cielo mare Persimmon Hill and a half-brother to stakes-winner Once Around and stakes-placed Persimmon Honey . Bred by Haymarket Farm and Lakemont Stable, he won the Tampa Bay Derby and two other races in a five-race career for earnings of $223,670. The Sanan family’s Padua Stables paid $250,000 for him at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s select 2-year-old sale in 2009.