Promising Extra Anejo out of training with ankle injury

Highly promising 2-year-old colt Extra Anejo has been taken out of training because of an injury, trainer Steve Asmussen reported on Sunday.

Asmussen and the colt’s owner, Winchell Thoroughbreds, had hoped to make the Gun Runner Stakes on Dec. 26 at Fair Grounds with Extra Anejo, but a relatively minor injury has forced a change in plans.

“He has a small chip in a hind ankle. It’s not ideal timing. The prognosis is good, but it’s not the timing anybody wants,” Asmussen said.

Extra Anejo already has undergone surgery to remove the chip. If all goes well, he’ll be back in Asmussen’s barn at Fair Grounds early in January.

All Extra Anejo has done is win a maiden race at Keeneland, but on the strength of that performance he was, at 12-1, the lowest individually priced horse in Churchill Downs Inc.’s Kentucky Derby Future pool that closed Nov. 3.

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Extra Anejo is by Into Mischief and out of Superiority Complex, by Hard Spun, and he was purchased at a 2021 yearling auction for $1,350,000. The colt was a 3-2 favorite making his career debut Oct. 13 over Keeneland’s Beard Course, where he took an early lead and jogged to a 9 1/2-length victory, earning a 92 Beyer Speed Figure for the extended seven furlongs while looking very much the part of a route horse.

He turned in an eye-catching five-furlong work at Keeneland during Breeders’ Cup week, then worked twice at Churchill, where he was termed a possible runner in the Nov. 26 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes. Extra Anejo wasn’t entered in the KJC and instead shipped to Fair Grounds.

His last published breeze came Nov. 15 at Churchill and even if Extra Anejo makes it back into the Asmussen barn in good time, it will have been nearly three months since his lone start, a timeline that makes it unlikely the colt could properly be prepared to go 1 1/4 miles in the Derby. Missing the Derby would be especially disappointing for Winchell and Asmussen, who had Epicenter, the leading member of his crop, finish second to implausible longshot Rich Strike in the 2022 Derby.

*** Another Winchell-owned, Asmussen-trained colt, Echo Again, worked five furlongs Sunday in 1:03 and will start Dec. 17 in the Springboard Mile at Remington Park. Echo Again was a romping debut sprint winner at Saratoga, earning a 94 Beyer, but finished seventh, beaten 14 lengths, as the favorite in the 1 1/16-mile Iroquois Stakes on Sept. 17, his most recent start.

*** Cyberknife, prepping to make his career finale next month in the Pegasus World Cup, worked three furlongs Saturday in 36.20. Another Pegasus-bound, Fair Grounds-based horse, Proxy, went a half mile in 50.20.

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