Badlands Nitro, who set the fractions to the three-quarter-mile marker for the first heat division of the Little Brown Jug won by Shadow Play, will not join many of the sport's top three-year-olds for the Bluegrass and Tattersalls stakes at The Red Mile.
The $1.4-million winner, who was a $16,000 yearling purchase, was scratched from the second heat of the Jug last Thursday. Teague said during the race day broadcast that the colt was "full of mucous."
"He's on some different antibiotics and we hope it gets cleared up in short order," trainer George Teague Jr. said about the son of Badlands Hanover, whom he co-owns with John Celii. "He's back home (in Harrington, Delaware). He was never scheduled to race in Lexington."
Next on Badlands Nitro's schedule is the Windy City Pace on October 10 at Maywood Park in Chicago. "We'll just clear him up; I don't see anything out of the ordinary," Teague said. "He's fine. He never even lost his appetite."
Teague was quick to praise Shadow Play who went on to win the Jug's second heat in 1:50.1.
"I think (Badlands Nitro) could have fired a little better, but Shadow Play definitely had a great day that day," he said. "I'm not downplaying that, believe me. I don't know if we were on our game if we could have beaten him anyway. He was awfully darn good; I can't knock that horse, he was outstanding. The second trip was more impressive than the first."
(Harness Racing Communications)