It’s too bad we can’t take Doug O’Neill, the trainer for I’ll Have Another at face value. Tendonitis? I just think all the scrutiny given to the Belmont and the special detention barn made it impossible for the trainer to perform his “magic.” O’Neill’ has a record of using drugs to get horses to run through their ailments. It’s hard not to stop any further speculation now. 

The only real positive here  is that the horse was scratched in the end.

It’s not the happy ending O’Neill and the racing establishment needed and wanted. But it’s the right thing and the humane thing. I’ll Have Another is spared exposure to a breakdown.  In the long run that’s far better than any false glory that O’Neill may have been chasing.