Stephanoatsee sidelined by pastern injury

Count Fleet Stakes runner-up Stephanoatsee is off the Kentucky Derby trail

due an injured pastern bone, trainer Graham Motion said Tuesday.

A half-brother to 2011 Preakness winner and Kentucky Derby fourth-placer

Shackleford, Stephanoatsee chipped a piece off the top of the pastern bone in

his right foreleg. He will undergo surgery Wednesday at the New Bolton Equine

Clinic in Pennsylvania, with Dr. Dean Richardson reattaching the piece rather

than removing it.

"Dean's optimistic he could be back (training) in two months," Motion told

Daily Racing Form. "If everything went smoothly he could make Saratoga. It's

disappointing. I was starting to get a little excited."

Stephanoatsee won his second career start, an October 21 maiden special

weight at Laurel Park, before concluding his juvenile season with a seventh in

the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes. By A.P. Indy, the dark bay colt finished second to

the promising Alpha when opening his three-year-old campaign in the January 7

Count Fleet at Aqueduct.

He is out of the stakes-placed Unbridled mare Oatsee, who is also the dam of

the Grade 1-winning Lady Joanne and multiple Grade 3 vixen Baghdaria.