Santa Anita Handicap winner Idol, standout sprinter Flagstaff and promising juvenile Rattle N Roll were all scratched from their various Breeders’ Cup races Sunday with various ailments.
Trainer Richard Baltas pulled Idol out of the Breeders’ Cup Classic after the conditioner found something untoward after his Sunday morning workout at Del Mar. Idol clocked five furlongs in 1:02.4.
The Daily Racing Form reported in a tweet that Baltas said Idol was “tight behind cooling out†and that Baltas wasn’t comfortable sending him out in the $6 million race.
After winning the Santa Anita Handicap in March, Idol went on the shelf for nearly seven months. He returned for September’s Awesome Again Stakes at Santa Anita. He finished sixth, the first time he missed the board in seven starts. His 86 Equibase Speed Figure from that race was not only 21 points below his 107 career-best from the Santa Anita Handicap, but a career low.
Flagstaff runs up a flagship career
Idol’s defection brings the Classic field to nine. Post-positions for the Breeders’ Cup’s flagship race will draw Monday.
Trainer John Sadler pulled Flagstaff out of the Breeders’ Cup Sprint and immediately retired him, according to a tweet from TVG. This ends a final season in the 7-year-old gelding’s career where he hit the board in six of seven 2021 races (2-2-2). Flagstaff won back-to-back races this spring: the Grade 3 Commonwealth Stakes at Keeneland in April and the Grade 1 Churchill Downs Stakes on Derby Day.
He retires with a 7-7-4 record in 22 races and nearly $1.1 million in earnings. More than $559,000 of those earnings came this year.
Breeders’ Cup Juvenile rolls without Rattle N Roll
The DRF reported that Rattle N Roll, the Breeders’ Futurity winner, will miss the Juvenile. Trainer Kenny McPeek told Horse Racing Nation in a text that he scratched the Connect progeny due to a hind foot abscess.
Rattle N Roll came in as a dark horse pick in the Juvenile after his career-best 99 Equibase in the Breeders’ Futurity. He won that race convincingly, by 4 ½ lengths at 8.70/1.
Rattle N Roll wasn’t McPeek’s only Sunday casualty. He told the DRF that Reina de Mollendo won’t run the Filly & Mare Turf.