Sharp Performance suffers severe injury

Sharp Performance, who was pulled up yards from the finish of Saturday's Fort Marcy Handicap at Aqueduct, suffered severe soft tissue damage in both front legs.

Sharp Performance's trainer, David Donk, told the New York Racing Association's press office on Sunday that the injury was life threatening. Sharp Performance was resting comfortably at Donk's Belmont Park barn on Sunday.

"I'm hoping we'll be able to fit him with braces," Donk said. "We've got a long way to go. This is definitely life threatening. Hopefully, we can save him as a stallion."

Donk said x-rays revealed no damage to Sharp Performance's sesamoid bones.

Sharp Performance, a stakes winner, was making his 4-year-old debut in the Fort Marcy, which was run over a turf course listed as yielding. Sharp Performance, the favorite, was making a bid for the lead when he bobbled and was pulled up by jockey John Velazquez inside the sixteenth pole.