Joseph confident vets will let White Abarrio run in Stephen Foster
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White Abarrio, a Breeders’ Cup Classic winner with an $8.4 million bankroll and vanquisher of mighty Sovereignty in the Oaklawn Handicap, shipped earlier this week from his base at Gulfstream Park to Churchill Downs.
On Tuesday morning, the 7-year-old horse got his first feel for the Churchill surface since finishing 16th in the 2022 Kentucky Derby. His trainer, Saffie Joseph Jr., feels confident that we will see White Abarrio in the starting gate late Saturday afternoon in the $2 million Stephen Foster Stakes.
Why is that even a question? White Abarrio last November was the subject of a widely publicized and controversial scratch. Official veterinarians took the horse out of the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Del Mar during the race’s warm-up period, citing potential lameness in White Abarrio’s left front leg.
Connections, to say the least, disagreed with that decision. Owners Gary Barber and C2 Racing Stable in mid-April filed suit against Breeders’ Cup, the California Horse Racing Board, and the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club. They contended that White Abarrio has displayed the “choppy gait” throughout his career, which led to his scratch. The horse, the owners contended, had moved the same way while passing lameness tests in the week before the BC Dirt Mile as he did during the post parade and warm-up for the race.
Kentucky regulatory veterinarians, to the vocal opposition of many horsepeople, have established a historically low bar for scratching a horse about whom they have soundness concerns. Still, Joseph doubts his horse will encounter the same degree of skepticism as in California.
“The Breeders’ Cup vets are the toughest – even more than Kentucky,” Joseph said Tuesday. “I don’t think it’s going to be any concern. He’s moving super. He’s doing well.”
Joseph also entered Navajo Warrior and Forged Steel in the Grade 1 Foster, but neither will ship from Saratoga for the race. Forged Steel will instead run in the Suburban Stakes, while Navajo Warrior goes to the Prairie Meadows Cornhusker, Joseph said in a text message.
C2 Racing and La Milagrosa bought White Abarrio after a sharp winning debut in September 2021, and Joseph trained him the next 11 starts, the most noteworthy a win in the Grade 1 Florida Derby. During spring 2023, White Abarrio was transferred to trainer Rick Dutrow, who saddled him to victories that year in the Whitney and the BC Classic before White Abarrio went back to Joseph during summer 2024.
White Abarrio’s dominant score in the 2025 Pegasus World Cup showed the horse back at the peak of his powers, but following a fourth straight defeat – in the Pegasus this past January – it felt like White Abarrio would never reach that peak again. Then, on April 16, albeit with a perfect trip while facing a horse returning from an eight-month layoff, he went out and beat Sovereignty, Horse of the Year in 2025, while earning a career-best 111 Beyer Speed Figure at Oaklawn.
Looking back, the string of losses came with plausible explanations. White Abarrio might have raced on the wrong part of the track, inside, and not loved sloppy going in the Met Mile. He suffered compromising ground loss finishing fourth in the Whitney, and when Irad Ortiz Jr. lost his seat aboard Mindframe early in the Jockey Club Gold Cup last August, he literally was co-riding White Abarrio with Edgard Zayas for a few strides.
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White Abarrio didn’t start again until the Pegasus, where he raced three wide with no cover on the first turn and four wide with no cover on the second turn after making a serious bid at the half-mile pole under Ortiz.
“That’s his best kind of trip, and Irad rode him much the best. What did him in that day was his preparation: We were coming off a five-month layoff,” Joseph said.
But might the best version of White Abarrio have overcome those obstacles? The horse had turned 7, with no big race wins in a year.
“Even in our camp, you start questioning everything,” said Joseph.
The question now: Can this aging star hand a second defeat to Sovereignty while also taking on two more high-class rivals in Magnitude and Baeza? The veterinarians, have no doubt, will be closely watching, but the trainer believes his horse will at least get that chance.
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