The Chosen Vron, the 2023 California-bred Horse of the Year, and the Cal-bred fillies and mares Chancery Way, Chismosa, and Grand Slam Smile, all five-time stakes winners who raced as recently as November, are notable absentees from Saturday’s California Cup program at Santa Anita.
All are expected to resume racing later this year.
The Chosen Vron, the leading candidate for 2024 Cal-bred Horse of the Year, has not raced since a second-place finish in the Grade 2 Pat O’Brien Stakes at Del Mar in August. He was withdrawn from consideration for the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Del Mar on Nov. 1 after being placed on a veterinarian’s list for “unsoundness.”
Trainer and co-owner Eric Kruljac said earlier this week that The Chosen Vron is currently undergoing therapy on an ankle.
“He’s doing all right,” Kruljac said.
“He has a small, very minute malformation of a bone just above the ankle. It was what they zeroed in on. They’ve made him ineligible to run, pending the next MRI.
“He’s run with the aberration and he’s learned to run on it and he’s never been lame at all. He does move a little differently.
:: Santa Anita Clocker Reports are available every race day. Access now.
“Hopefully, with the therapy and the time off maybe he’ll come back better than ever. He’ll probably have another two or three months in rehab.”
The Chosen Vron, co-owned by John Sondereker, Robert Fetkin, and Richard Thornburgh, has won a remarkable 19 of 25 starts and earned $1,709,678. He has won 11 stakes against California-breds, including the California Cup Sprint in 2023 and 2024, and consecutive runnings of the Grade 1 Bing Crosby Stakes at Del Mar the last two summers.
The Chosen Vron is a finalist for the Eclipse Award as the nation’s outstanding sprinter of 2024.
Kruljac said the Del Mar summer meeting is a long-range goal for The Chosen Vron, a 7-year-old gelding.
“Hopefully we can get another season in,” Kruljac said. “We’ll see.”
Chancery Way, second to Rose Maddox in the 2023 Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Turf Sprint on the California Cup program, is currently on vacation at a Northern California farm, trainer Jamey Thomas said.
Owned by Rob and Andy Smolich, Chancery Way, 6, has won 8 of 17 starts and earned $424,020. In 2024, she won once in five starts, taking the Governor’s Cup Stakes at Sacramento in July. She ended the season with a third-place finish in the Livermore Valley Stakes at Pleasanton in November.
“We’re giving her some time,” Thomas said.
Thomas expressed hope that Chancery Way could race in Northern California this summer, although no racing dates have been finalized for the fair circuit in that part of the state. A winter-spring meeting at Pleasanton was scrapped in December because of lower-than-expected handle figures at an autumn meeting at that venue.
The Pleasanton meeting replaced dates previously held at Golden Gate Fields, which closed permanently in June.
“We’re seeing what happens for us in the summertime,” Thomas said of the northern circuit. “Hopefully, we can get to the fairs.”
Rose Maddox, a winner of 7 of 27 starts who earned $567,264, was retired in the fall and will be bred in coming months, owner and trainer Nick Alexander said last month.
Grand Slam Smile, a 4-year-old filly, was second in the Livermore Valley Stakes as the 4-5 favorite in her final start of a 2024 season that included three wins in six starts.
Trained in 2024 by Steve Specht for owners and breeders Larry and Marianne Williams, Grand Slam Smile began the year with a win in the California Cup Oaks at Santa Anita. She later won the California Distaff on the hillside turf course for statebred fillies and mares at Santa Anita in October.
Specht retired from training in December after news emerged that Pleasanton would not race this winter. Grand Slam Smile will be sent to a trainer in Southern California this spring, according to Dan Kiser, racing manager for the Williamses.
“We’re going to give her another six weeks off and she’ll go back in training in Southern California,” Kiser said. “I don’t know what trainer yet.”
Grand Slam Smile has won 6 of 11 starts and earned $526,400.
“She just needed a break,” Kiser said. “She tried every time.”
Kiser said the lack of racing in Northern California has led to a change in the way the Williamses are approaching 2025. He said they have sold some horses privately in recent weeks and plan a smaller breeding program.
“We’ll cut back our numbers quite a bit,” he said. “I’m worried about Northern California. We’ll probably breed close to a dozen and in the past it was twice that.”
Chismosa won the Betty Grable Stakes for statebred fillies and mares at Del Mar on Nov. 30 and promptly earned a vacation, according to owner and breeder Jamie Renella.
Chismosa won 3 of 11 starts in 2024, including a fourth in the Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Turf Sprint. She won two sprint stakes at six furlongs at Santa Anita during the season – the Grade 3 Las Flores in January and the Desert Stormer in June.
“We have her resting for at least two or three months,” Renella said. “She’s perfectly fine. We raced her too many times last year, but she’s an iron horse. There is nothing wrong with her.”
Renella has long-term plans to race Chismosa through 2025 before sending her to an auction in Kentucky in November.
“We’ll run her all this year and hope for the best,” he said.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.