Belmont Park: Soldat taken out of training

Soldat, the Fountain of Youth winner, has been taken out of training due to tender feet and will be out indefinitely, trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said.

Soldat, who finished 11th in the Kentucky Derby, was being pointed to next weekend’s Virginia Derby, but instead was sent Kesmarc Farm in Kentucky on Thursday for a vacation of undetermined length.

“He wasn’t training like he was prior to the Kentucky Derby,” McLaughlin said. “We were looking for something wrong, but really couldn’t find anything. His feet were a little tender, so we decided to give him a chance and stop on him. It might be 30 days, it might be 130 days. It’s a tough decision to stop on a horse when you don’t have to, but we’re trying to do the right thing by him.”

Soldat is the sixth horse that ran in the Kentucky Derby that will miss most of, if not the remainder, of this year. The others are Derby one-two finishers Animal Kingdom and Nehro as well as Dialed In (8th), Archarcharch (15th) – who is retired – and Comma to the Top (19th).