The latest in horse racing news today comes from Louisville as Finnick the Fierce was announced as a scratch this morning. Arnaldo Monge and trainer Rey Hernandez’s Finnick the Fierce was declared out of Saturday’s 146th running of the $3 million Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (GI).
“Because he’s blind on the right eye, he carries himself a little funny,” Monge said. “And we always knew that. But ever since he arrived, the vets have been keeping an eye on the horse and I’m telling Rey ‘well, they’re concerned about this’ and there might be a legitimate reason but a regular vet doesn’t seem to think so. So we’re always trying to do the best for the horse so we made the decision (to scratch) because we don’t want to go tomorrow and we’re all excited and then he gets scratched at the post.
So we always said this is a horse for the long term. It was an honor to be selected (for the Derby) but at the end of the day the most important thing is the horse. Maybe we are missing something I don’t know, but I think the plan is to do more diagnostics on him and if everything is OK we’ll run another day. What can we do, that’s life.
Churchill Downs/Coady Photography
