True Valour to miss Kilroe Mile with injury

ARCADIA, Calif. – True Valour, the winner of the Grade 3 Thunder Road Stakes at Santa Anita on Feb. 9, will miss Saturday’s Grade 1 Kilroe Mile because of an injury.

Trainer Simon Callaghan said in a text message on Wednesday that True Valour “had a minor setback and will have 60 days off.”

Owned by Qatar Racing, True Valour, 5, won his third stakes and his first in the United States in the Thunder Road Stakes at a mile on turf. True Valour has had four starts with Callaghan since he was imported from Ireland last summer.

Callaghan intends to have a runner in a Grade 1 race for older horses with All Out Blitz in the $500,000 Churchill Downs Stakes at seven furlongs on the Kentucky Derby undercard on May 4.

Owned by breeder Kaleem Shah, All Out Blitz won his first stakes in the Bill Thomas Memorial Stakes at 6 1/2 furlongs at Sunland Park last Sunday. All Out Blitz has won 4 of 14 starts and earned $251,030.

The Churchill Downs Stakes annually draws a strong field of runners from throughout the nation.

The $400,000 Kilroe Mile on turf is one of two Grade 1 races on Saturday’s program at Santa Anita. The graded stakes winners Catapult, Hunt, Next Shares, and River Boyne are leading contenders, along with Ohio, who was second in the Thunder Road.

The $400,000 Beholder Mile for fillies and mares is led by Marley’s Freedom, a five-time stakes winner in the last year who won the Grade 2 Santa Monica Stakes at seven furlongs in her 2019 debut on Feb. 16. Selcourt, second in the Santa Monica, is expected in the Beholder Mile, which is run on dirt.