Dollar Bill to miss season

Dollar Bill, the graded-stakes-winning millionaire owned by Gary and Mary West, will miss the 2004 breeding season.

A 6-year-old Peaks and Valleys horse, Dollar Bill was to enter stud this season at Signature Stallions in Ocala, Fla., but he has not recovered sufficiently from an injury to his right front fetlock. Dr. Larry Bramlage, the equine orthopedic surgeon who repaired the injury, recommended that the stallion miss the breeding season.

Dollar Bill developed laminitis in his left front foot after surgery on the right fetlock. Postsurgical laminitis in an opposite leg generally results from added stress as the recovering horse shifts his weight from the injured area onto the opposite leg.

Bramlage said the laminitis in Dollar Bill's left leg "still precludes him from normal exercise. Therefore, it is better that we delay the initiation of his stud career until both problems are fully resolved."

Dollar Bill, a son of the Saratoga Six mare Saratoga Dame, won the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes in 2000 and was second or third in five Grade 1 stakes from ages 3 to 5.