Texas Red to miss rest of sophomore season

Texas Red, the multiple graded stakes-winning colt, will miss the remainder of his 3-year-old season with bruising to the cannon bone of his right foreleg, his connections announced Thursday.

Texas Red, who was under consideration for the Breeders’ Cup Classic, is scheduled to race again next year as a 4-year-old, according to Julie Clark, the assistant to trainer Keith Desormeaux.

Texas Red had not been back to the track to train in the 19 days since his fifth-place finish to Keen Ice in the Travers at Saratoga on Aug. 29. But it wasn’t until Thursday, when Dr. Larry Bramlage examined the colt, that the bruising was confirmed via nuclear scan.

Clark said there appeared to be an issue with Texas Red coming out of the Travers, but “it was so slight we could not pinpoint what the problem was,” she said.

Clark said Bramlage recommended some time off, and in six weeks – right after the Breeders’ Cup – Texas Red will be X-rayed again to get an idea of when he could resume training.

Clark said Bramlage told Desormeaux he “couldn’t see any reason why [Texas Red] couldn’t come back better than ever.”

Texas Red is currently stabled at Churchill Downs with a handful of other Desormeaux-trained horses. When those horses move to Keeneland in a few weeks, Texas Red likely will relocate to a farm to convalesce.

Erich Brehm Jr., one of the owners of Texas Red, first announced on Twitter that Texas Red would be out for the remainder of the year.

Texas Red, who dominated the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile by 6 1/2 lengths at Santa Anita last November, missed this year’s Triple Crown series due to a foot abscess discovered after a second-place finish in the San Vicente Stakes in February. He returned in the Grade 3 Dwyer Stakes on July 4 at Belmont, where he finished second to Speightster.

Texas Red then beat Frosted in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga on Aug. 2 before finishing fifth, beaten 11 1/2 lengths, in the Travers.