Prince Lucky to have surgery to repair sesamoid fractures

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Prince Lucky, who was pulled up just over a quarter-mile into Saturday's Grade 3 Harlan's Holiday, is scheduled to have surgery early this week to repair bilateral sesamoid fractures in his right front leg trainer Todd Pletcher said on Sunday morning.

"He's stable and resting at Gulfstream Park today,", said Pletcher. "He'll ship to Dr. Madison's [Ocala Equine Hospital] on Monday. Obviously, his racing career is over. But Dr. Madison was optimistic, after seeing the x-rays, that he could perform surgery and get him completely comfortable and stable for retirement."

Prince Lucky was dueling for the lead with Bodexpress when something went wrong leaving the clubhouse turn. The gelding was pulled up quickly by jockey John Velazquez.

"At this point I'm still not exactly sure what happened, I still need to see the head-on replay to see if he might have taken a bad step," said Pletcher. "Johnny said he wasn't sure what happened either. He kind of heard something, almost like he clipped heels with Bodexpress. He said he heard something hit right before he felt him go wrong, after which he did a great job getting him pulled up."

Prince Lucky, a 4-year-old son of Corinthian owned by his breeder Daniel McConnell, retires with seven wins from 16 starts, four of them stakes, including the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Mile and Grade 3 Hal's Hope here last winter and earnings of $607,570.

"He’s a cool horse," said Pletcher. "He was able to put together some pretty strong races during his career and he means a lot to the owners. They bred him and have the mare and it's a tribute for them and their program, a small breeding operation, to be able to raise a graded stakes horse like that. Hopefully everything goes smoothly from here and he retires to live out a happy life."