Retirement a possibility for Lost in the Fog
By CHUCK DYBDAL
In the wake of Lost in the Fog's ninth-place finish Saturday in the Grade 2 Smile Sprint at Calder, trainer Greg Gilchrist said that he and owner Harry Aleo are giving thought to retiring the colt. Lost in the Fog, the champion sprinter of 2005, will get a rest, Gilchrist said, and a decision on his future will be made when he returns to training.
"We're not leaning one way or the other," he said. "We'll give him time to get his feet underneath him and see how he is. We want to determine if he can be competitive at the level he should be. If it were going to take two or three months to bring him back, and there was only one race left for him this year, we'd probably retire him."
Gilchrist said Lost in the Fog didn't seem to try in the Smile, in which he carried high weight of 125 pounds and was the even-money favorite. Aleo and Gilchrist have said that Lost in the Fog, a 4-year-old by Lost Soldier, would race as both a 4-year-old and 5-year-old, and this is the first time they have questioned that plan.
"You can't put a positive spin on it," Gilchrist said. "It's the first time I've seen him not try. He carried a lot of weight, but that had nothing to do with running that poorly. He's got a lot of problems, things like quarter cracks and bumps and bruises. It's nothing life-threatening or career-ending, but they catch up with him."
Earlier at Calder on Saturday, the Gilchrist-trained Victorina won the Grade 3 Azalea Breeders' Cup Stakes. Gilchrist said he expected a good race out of Victorina but that he wasn't sure how Lost in the Fog would run.
"There were no surprises for me Saturday," trainer Greg Gilchrist said. "I wasn't surprised she ran well, and it didn't surprise me the other horse didn't."
Lost in the Fog and Victorina, both owned by Aleo, were scheduled to arrive at Golden Gate Fields late Tuesday afternoon.
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