ARCADIA, Calif. – Nyquist, the 2016 Kentucky Derby winner and champion 2-year-old male of 2015, came out of his workout on Thursday with a "puffy ankle," trainer Doug O'Neill said, and is out of the $6 million Breeders' Cup Classic on Nov. 5 at Santa Anita.
"He jogs sound and the X-rays are clean," O'Neill said Saturday morning. "But with the timing, he can't make the Classic. We're bummed and sad."
Nyquist was scheduled to be retired after the Classic and go to stud at Darley in Kentucky.
SANTA ANITA
Track: Fast
Weather: Overcast
Temp.: 63
ARCADIA, Calif. – The threat of rain that forced many trainers to alter workout schedules for their Breeders’ Cup horses the past couple of days was a false alarm, so the main track was fast and dry throughout Friday morning’s five-hour training session.
STICKNEY, Ill. – He parks a rented Hyundai on a wan industrial Chicago morning and walks into a barn on the Hawthorne backstretch. A couple of jockey agents and two apprentice riders cluster near the office. Everyone smiles and greets him. “Hey, Ganbat!”
Santa Anita/Los Alamitos
Track: Fast
Weather: Clear
Temp. 68
ARCADIA, Calif. – With rain in the forecast, Thursday suddenly became the work day of choice for many Breeders’ Cup contenders, including five members of the prospective Classic field, led by California Chrome, who worked over his home course at Los Alamitos. Also working Thursday were Distaff rivals Songbird and Beholder at Santa Anita.
ARCADIA, Calif. – A Group 1 race at Saint-Cloud Racecourse in France on Sunday is expected to influence the list of runners for the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Santa Anita on Nov. 4.
Trainer Aidan O’Brien has three fillies pre-entered in the BC Juvenile Fillies Turf – Hydrangea, Promise to Be True, and Roly Poly – and has entered Promise to Be True in Sunday’s $273,750 Criterium International at seven furlongs on turf at Saint-Cloud
ARCADIA, Calif. – The field for the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile on Nov. 4 at Santa Anita is in flux, owing to several horses being pre-entered in two races. Two of the runners committed to the race, Point Piper and Tamarkuz, turned in their final works for the race Thursday morning here at Santa Anita.
Point Piper, working in company, went five furlongs in 59.40 seconds for trainer Jerry Hollendorfer.
“Real nice,” said Hollendorfer. “He got a good, decent workout.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – Erupt, the winner of the Grade 1 Canadian International at Woodbine on Oct. 16, will not be sent from his base in France to California for the $4 million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita on Nov. 5, trainer Francis-Henri Graffard said on Thursday.
“He’s not coming to the race,” Graffard said. “It’s too soon to put him back on the plane.”
Erupt ended a streak of seven consecutive losses with a 12-1 win in the Canadian International.
ELMONT, N.Y. – It was a cloudy, rainy, chilly Thursday morning in New York, but for jockey Manny Franco, it was a beautiful day as he guided Yellow Agate through a sharp five-furlong workout in 1:00.17 over the Belmont Park main track in preparation for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on Nov. 5 at Santa Anita.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Living The Life, who would have been one of the longer shots in her final start Nov. 5 in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, has been retired after exiting her latest workout with slight filling in her right front ankle.
Trainer Gary Mandella said the development is frustrating for himself and owner Hank Nothhaft “because we were just now figuring out how to make her run well on the dirt.” Nine of Living The Life’s 10 victories came on a synthetic surface.
Mondialiste is nearly certain to start in the Breeders’ Cup Turf instead of the Breeders’ Cup Mile, trainer David O’Meara said Thursday.
Mondialiste won the 1 1/4-mile Arlington Million, earning a fees-paid entry into the Turf and travel expenses from England to Santa Anita through the Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In program, but he has been much more a miler type throughout his career than a horse suited to the Turf’s 1 1/2 miles. Last year, he finished second to Tepin in the Breeders’ Cup Mile.
