Photo Credit: Breeders’Cup/Eclipse Sportswire
Godolphin’s homebred Grade 1 winner Maxfield, the third choice on the morning line for the $2 million TVG Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, will scratch from the 1 1/16m race after he was discovered to be off in his right front Tuesday morning.
The son of Street Sense did go to the track to train Tuesday, but Jimmy Bell, president of Godolphin USA, said he and trainer Brendan Walsh noticed the colt was “not himself”.
“Terrible timing but it was really a pretty easy call,” Bell said. “Brendan said when he came out this morning and washed off the poultice that he said it was just a little off. You don’t know what they’ve done in the stall. So we took him for a jog around there for whatever reason he wasn’t himself. He’s an easy horse to read and we’re proactive. It’s just terrible timing”.
“It could be something as simple as a bruise in his foot. But what we do know is he’s not running.”
Maxfield was coming into the Juvenile unbeaten in two career starts and earned his way into the World Championships with a 5 ½-length victory in the Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland Oct. 5. That victory marked the first Grade 1 win of Walsh’s career.
“We’re a little numb but he’s done so much as a 2-year-old,” Bell said. “We have a great horse on our hands and we look very much forward to next year. He’s a special horse. Again, this just terrible timing. We’ll see if we can figure out just exactly what it is.”
