Sporting Chance has knee chip removed, will return at 3

ELMONT, N.Y. – Sporting Chance, winner of the Grade 1 Hopeful at Saratoga, will be sidelined the remainder of the year after having a chip removed from a knee, trainer D. Wayne Lukas said Monday.

Lukas was targeting the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity on Oct. 7 at Keeneland and potentially the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile on Nov. 4 at Del Mar for Sporting Chance, who had won two of his first three starts and was among the leaders of the 2-year-old division.

“We were looking at the second part of the season and we did a routine check-up and we took some basic X-rays just to see and Dr. [Larry] Bramlage said there was a non-evasive chip,” Lukas said. “But he said eventually you could get in trouble in the middle of the Triple Crown or something, so we decided to take care of it now and have him ready.”

Lukas said Sporting Chance will be out of training for only six weeks.

Lukas said Sporting Chance would winter at Oaklawn Park and use that track’s series of races for 3-year-olds to prepare for the Triple Crown series.

Sporting Chance, a son of Tiznow owned by Robert Baker and William Mack, finished second to Dak Attack at Churchill Downs in his debut. Sporting Chance won a maiden race by 2 1/4 lengths July 22 at Saratoga before taking the Hopeful by a neck after bearing out late from jockey Luis Saez’s left-handed stick.