The winners of the past two Breeders’ Cup Classics have been ruled out of the Group 1 Saudi Cup at King Abdulaziz Racetrack in Riyadh on February 22.
White Abarrio (2023) and Sierra Leone (2024) were both nominated for the race, but their respective connections have confirmed they will not take up the engagement.
The news sparked a significant shake-up in the latest Saudi Cup betting at Betway, with Japanese horse Forever Young now topping the ante-post market.
White Abarrio recently won the $3 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park and was expected to head to the Middle East for his next run.
The six-year-old is co-owned by Saudi Prince Faisal bin Khaled bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, and he was eager to see the horse run in Saudi Arabia.
However, co-owner Mark Cornett believes it will be in the horse’s best interests to focus on a US campaign, with the Ghostzapper Stakes at Gulfstream on March 29 likely to be his next target.
“We are going to bypass Saudi,” Cornett said. “We will stay here and campaign him here. All the stars just weren’t lining up with the timing and shipping and all that stuff.
“We’re going to try to do what’s best by the horse and stay here and have a nice campaign to end his career here.”
“All along it was probably 50-50. We had to factor in that Prince Faisal also owns a piece of the horse and that he is from Saudi Arabia.
“At the end of the day, we decided we had to do what’s best for the horse and campaign him over here and have his last few races in the US.”
Cornett has also withdrawn 2024 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint winner Soul of an Angel from the race in favour of campaigning her on home soil.
Trainer Chad Brown dealt a further blow to organisers of the Saudi Cup when he confirmed that Sierra Leone would miss the prestigious race.
The four-year-old is recovering from an abscess on his coronet band, which scuppered Brown’s hopes of stepping up his preparations ahead of the proposed trip to the Middle East.
“I couldn’t really work him, so I just kind of played it safe and skipped it, which takes him out of the Saudi race,” Brown said.
“It’s not a big deal and I’m glad the abscess did come out in a clean fashion. It’ll grow down and his foot will be fine. He just wasn’t 100 percent to breeze, so I didn’t want to push it.
“You could tell it was bothering him and something was going to come out of there and it did. It’s resolved, but the timing wasn’t good.
“He won’t miss a whole lot of time, but I was on a very tight schedule given we gave him a month off after the Breeders’ Cup. He was supposed to fly out in a week and it just wasn’t going to work.”
Sierra Leone upset several more fancied horses when winning the 2024 Breeders’ Cup Classic and Brown has set his sights on the big race again this year.
The horse is likely to make his seasonal reappearance in the Oaklawn Handicap on April 19, which gives him plenty of time to fully recover from his recent setback.
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