Travel schedule thrown off for some BC horses

ARCADIA, Calif. – If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

First, Mother Nature wreaked havoc on the training schedules for New York-based horsemen. Now, a plane malfunction has delayed the shipping of horses based in New York and Kentucky for this week’s Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita.

On Monday morning, the Tex Sutton plane was still in Lexington, Ky., undergoing a repair for a cracked windshield. The plane was scheduled to leave New York at 9 a.m. and bring about 16 horses for trainers Chad Brown and Bill Mott as well one for a Canadian-based trainer.

That flight was delayed until after 5 p.m. Eastern. The plane was scheduled to stop in Indianapolis to refuel and was not expected to arrive in Southern California until after 9 p.m. local time.

That delay forces the delay of Tuesday’s flight as well. That Tex Sutton flight was scheduled to leave New York around 3 a.m. Tuesday and take horses to Southern California before going back to Kentucky to pick up a shipment for a Tuesday afternoon flight to California.

Now, the Tuesday plane will leave New York around 10 a.m., and the Kentucky-based horses won’t ship to California until Wednesday morning.

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Flight delays are not new and often have little bearing on results. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy forced the postponement of certain flights, and many of the affected horses – Fort Larned, Wise Dan, Royal Delta, and Shanghai Bobby – won.