Woodbine: Nipissing euthanized after breaking leg in Wonder Where

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Nipissing, winner of the Woodbine Oaks, had to be euthanized late Sunday afternoon after breaking down during the running of the Wonder Where Stakes.

“She just shattered her left hind leg,” said Rob Landry, general manager for the Chiefswood Stable of Robert and Mark Krembil, the owners and breeders of Nipissing.

Nipissing was pulled up on the far turn of the 1 1/4-mile turf race by jockey Steven Bahen, who had ridden the 3-year-old filly in all of her starts.

“Steve just said she took a bad step, and he felt (her leg) go,” said Landry. “He kind of steadied her and then she took a couple more bad steps and he got her pulled up.”

Nipissing was vanned back to trainer Rachel Halden’s barn.

“We took an X-ray of it,” said Landry. “They were three surgeons there, and they said the chances of her making it were very, very low.

“We would have spent any amount of money. If we had a chance of saving her, we would have saved her.”

Sired in Ontario by Chiefswood’s Queen’s Plate winner Niigon and out of the Dixieland Band mare Kiche, Nipissing was undefeated in four starts here at 2, including 1 1/16-mile stakes wins in the Princess Elizabeth for Canadian-bred fillies and the South Ocean for Ontario-sired fillies.

After beginning her sophomore campaign with a sixth-place finish in Keeneland’s Ashland, Nipissing returned to Woodbine and finished second behind the Kentucky-bred Coffee Clique in the Grade 3 Selene at 1 1/16 miles. That effort set up Nipissing for her main target, the 1 1/8-mile Woodbine Oaks, which she won by three-quarters of a length over the favored Spring in the Air.

She then finished an uncharacteristic eighth in the 1 1/4-mile Queen’s Plate before moving to turf for the first time in the Wonder Where.

Nipissing, who earned $646,930, will be sent to the University of Guelph’s equine veterinary clinic for an autopsy, as is mandatory in the case of ontrack breakdowns.