Untrapped supplied Arkansas owner Mike Langford numerous thrills in a short racing career, representing the Jonesboro horseman in the 2017 Kentucky Derby.
Poised to have a successful 4-year-old season, the Grade 3 winner developed the dreaded laminitis after a bout with colic and was euthanized Monday, Langford reported.
Untrapped won only two of 16 starts but annexed the Oklahoma Derby last fall at Remington Park, defeating a field that included subsequent Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile winner Battle of Midway. That came late in a campaign that Untrapped placed in five other graded stakes -- third in Oaklawn Park's Grade 2 Rebel -- and finished sixth in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby. In a race that stablemate Lookin At Lee was runner-up to Always Dreaming, Untrapped finished 12th in Kentucky Derby 143, Langford's first starter in the Churchill Downs classic.
Langford said Steve Asmussen, his Hall of Fame trainer, was confident that Untrapped might reach his peak at 4, which proved partly true.
The Trappe Shot colt dead-heated for second with One Liner behind Irish War Cry in the Grade 3 Pimlico Special May 18. That followed a third-place finish behind West Coast stars City of Light and Accelerate in the Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap April 14 and a second to Hedge Fund in Oaklawn's March 17 Essex Handicap.
Complications arose after Untrapped suffered a bout of colic about 10 days ago, Langford said. The colt then developed laminitis, the bone disease that killed the great Secretariat, while rehabbing at an equine center in Versailles, Ky.
"They called me yesterday and said the vet would be calling that Untrapped was (starting) to founder," Langford was quoted on Bloodhorse.com Tuesday. "By the time the vet called me, he had gotten in pretty bad shape. They just said with what all had happened to him with the colic and stuff, he would not have a very good success rate of recovering. It would be a painful process. So I told the vet, let's do the right thing.
"It was just kind of a bad deal. I didn't want him to suffer; no one did. I think we absolutely did the right thing, but I hate it for him."
Earning $857,005 on the track, Untrapped easily recouped his $125,000 purchase price from the April 2016 Ocala (Fla.) Breeders' Sale of 2-year-olds in training. He broke his maiden second time out at Churchill Downs in November 2016, then placed second in two graded stakes at Fair Grounds before shipping to Oaklawn.
"He was such a cool horse to be around," Langford said. "He tried every race. And to be around him at the barn, he'd stop whenever he saw me ... he knew I had peppermints. He was very smart. He was just 4 and we thought he would only get better as time went on."
Sports on 06/27/2018