Informative scratched from BC Dirt Mile; Hot Peppers out of Filly and Mare Sprint
Two Breeders’ Cup horses were scratched from their respective races on Thursday by regulatory veterinarians, according to the organization and the horse’s connections. The two horses were Informative, who was set to run in Saturday’s Dirt Mile, and Hot Peppers, who was set to run in the Filly and Mare Sprint the same day.
Informative, a 30-1 shot owned and trained by Uriah St. Lewis, was the most experienced horse in the Dirt Mile field, with 36 career starts.
St. Lewis said on Thursday that a regulatory veterinarian examined Informative on Thursday morning and contended that the horse was “reactive to palpation” of a suspensory tendon. St. Lewis insisted that the horse was sound and said that “rather than get into a fight, I told them I would take my horse home.”
Informative, a 5-year-old horse, has four wins in a 36-race career and $557,040 in purse earnings. He had raced in five consecutive graded stakes prior to the Dirt Mile and had won the Grade 3 Iselin at Monmouth Park on Aug. 20.
St. Lewis said that Informative has never been scratched by a veterinarian in his career.
“He’s never had no problems,” St. Lewis said. “He still has no problems. I could jog him for you right now. It’s just an unfortunate situation. You can’t fight them, because you can’t win. At least they said they will give me my money back” for entry fees.
Breeders’ Cup and the racing industry as a whole have been increasingly rigorous in evaluating horses for soundness due to concerns over fatal injuries at major events. The last Breeders’ Cup fatality was Mongolian Groom in 2019, a year in which the industry’s safety rate was under scrutiny due to a cluster of deaths earlier in the year at Santa Anita, the host site of the event that year.
Hot Peppers, 30-1 on the morning line for the 13-horse Filly and Mare Sprint, is trained by Rudy Rodriguez and owned by Michael Dubb and Michael Caruso. She has a record of five wins from nine starts, with earnings of $392,950.
Hot Peppers was coming into the Filly and Mare Sprint off a fourth-place finish in the Grade 2 Prioress and a second-place finish in the Grade 1 Test, both at New York. She had not raced since Sept. 2.
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