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1:21 p.m. | Updated with horse’s retirement

I’ll Have Another, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner who was aiming to become the 12th horse to win the Triple Crown, was scratched Friday from Saturday’s Belmont Stakes and later retired from racing because of a leg injury.

The 3-year-old colt, who had been a long-shot winner of the Derby and an impressive winner three weeks ago in the Preakness, has tendinitis in his left front leg, his trainer, Doug O’Neill, said.

At a news conference Friday afternoon in front of Barn 2 at Belmont Park, where the Belmont Stakes horses have been quartered since Wednesday, O’Neill and the horse’s owner, J. Paul Reddam, announced that I’ll Have Another would be retired.

A crowd of more than 100,000 people was expected to watch I’ll Have Another try to end the 34-year Triple Crown drought. Affirmed, in 1978, was the last to accomplish the feat. Nineteen horses have won the first two legs and lost the mile-and-a-half Belmont Stakes.

O’Neill had not trained I’ll Have Another in a customary fashion. He eschewed formal timed workouts in favor of nearly daily gallops. As of Thursday, O’Neill had declared himself thrilled by how his horse had worked and looked.

But it was on Thursday that O’Neill first detected a potential problem. He felt a little heat in I’ll Have Another’s left foreleg, which can often be a sign of a physical ailment, but it went away.

Then on Friday, O’Neill changed routines, planning for a quiet morning. I’ll Have Another was on the track at 5:30 a.m., three or so hours earlier than usual. When he came back with some swelling, he was given an ultrasound examination, and Dr. James Hunt, a veterinarian, reported the horse had the beginning of tendinitis.

While not usually career-threatening — he could be laid up three to six months and be brought back — Reddam said: “We’ve got to do what’s best for the horse. He can’t compete at the top level. He’s done enough.”

O’Neill said: “It’s far from tragic, but it’s really disappointing.”

I’ll Have Another won two-thirds of the Triple Crown and will be valuable as a stallion.

Still, his scratch is one of the most momentous in racing history. Only two horses who won the Derby and Preakness — Burgoo King in 1932 and Bold Venture in 1936 — did not contest the Belmont, and that was well before the Triple Crown had achieved mainstream prominence.

O’Neill, as much as his horse, was the focus of scrutiny after the Derby win. He has compiled a lengthy record of drug violations involving his horses, and was recently suspended by California authorities for 45 days for the latest alleged violation. As a consequence, New York racing officials took extraordinary measures to safeguard against any real or perceived drug issue involving horses in the Belmont, creating a special barn to house the horses and conduct a strict monitoring program.

A spokesman for the New York State Racing and Wagering Board said that all 12 entrants in the Belmont Stakes were tested for prohibited substances Wednesday and that all the tests were negative.

O’Neill did not see the move to the barn as contributing to the injury. “It’s just a freakish thing,” O’Neill said.

O’Neill has insisted he is a clean trainer. He said he welcomed the intense monitoring. But almost inevitably, as soon as word of I’ll Have Another’s injury surfaced online, the wisecracks began, implying there might be an underlying or hidden drug issue involved.

Fair or not, O’Neill and the horse’s owner are likely to have to combat such suspicions going forward.

I’ll Have Another was undefeated in four starts this year, having won twice in California before pulling off a 15-1 upset in the Kentucky Derby. In the Preakness he determinedly wore down his rival and the Derby runner-up Bodemeister to win by a neck.

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Alex Levine

I'm horse racing fan for a long time and this is just another big blow to the racing industry. Just when you thought this was it, something had to happen. I seriously believe he could have win the last leg of the triple crown.

It's ashame.