California - AFP
The Bob Baffert-trained Super Ninety Nine was scratched from Friday\'s Breeders\' Cup Juvenile Sprint after suffering minor abrasions when cast in his stall.
\"I\'m really upset,\" said Baffert, who reckoned the colt, priced at 5-2, had a great chance to win the $500,000, six furlong race for 2-year-olds after a superb final workout.
\"He got cast in his stall this morning, of all things. And was just getting more and more uneasy after it. He\'s scraped up. It\'s not serious, but you can\'t have stuff like this prior to a race like this.
\"He\'ll be OK, but not today. It is really too bad. He was going to win that race.\"
The Juvenile Sprint is the first race of the two-day, 15-race Breeders\' Cup slate worth total prize money of $25 million.
The $5 million Classic will cap the action on Saturday.
Worth Repeating, one of three horses listed as 5-1 second choices for the Marathon, was withdrawn from the race Friday morning by trainer Mike Machowsky.
\"After training yesterday morning he wasn\'t quite right,\" Machowsky said. \"He was just a little off in his left front, not much, but it was there. This morning both vets looked at him again and it was still there.\"
Trainer Dale Romans pulled Sustained from the Juvenile Fillies Turf with a bruise in her right front hoof.
\"We probably could have still run, but we decided it was better to be safe than sorry,\" Romans said. \"She\'s a nice filly and is going to be really good next year.\"