Accidental double medications force Cox to scratch 4 horses

Inadvertent double doses of two legal medications were the reason trainer Brad Cox scratched four horses only hours before they were scheduled to start in three stakes races Friday night at Remington Park, a source and an unaffected owner said this weekend.

Cox could not be reached for comment Monday about what a stable source told Horse Racing Nation was a “medication mishap” that happened when the horses were given routine doses at Oaklawn in Arkansas and then again after they arrived at the Oklahoma City track.

“They got treated on both ends,” the source said Sunday. “Bad communication. Mistakes happen.”

That explanation matched the story Arkansas horse owner John Fox posted Saturday on Facebook about the “communication error” that forced the scratches.

“I’m at Oaklawn this morning, and one of my horses is in barn beside (the Cox string),” Woo Pig Stables’ John Fox wrote in a post to the Live and Breathe Horse Racing Group page. “They shipped horses to RP two days before race, and assistant at (Oaklawn) went ahead and gave them bute and another drug for pre-race, and when they got to RP the assistant there called vet and did not check with (Oaklawn) assistant and had vet come out and give them the same two drugs again. So if he would have raced, he would get suspended. ... So he scratched them all.”

The horses missed Friday morning veterinary checks at Remington Park, according to Oklahoma chief steward David Moore. They would have been at risk of failing medication tests, because the double doses would have put them over race-day limits set by state and federal regulators.

The four scratched horses included morning-line favorites Pioneer of Medina, a Grade 3-winning, 4-year-old colt who was drawn into the Jeffrey A. Hawk Memorial, and West Omaha, a 2-year-old filly entered in the Trapeze Stakes. Allowance victor Fidget and maiden winner Gettysburg Address, both 2-year-old colts who would have raced in the Remington Springboard Mile, also were scratched by Cox.

All four horses breezed either Dec. 7 or 8 at Churchill Downs before they were shipped first to Oaklawn in Arkansas and then Wednesday to Remington. Once the medication mistake was discovered late Thursday, Cox had the horses taken overnight to Oaklawn, where they were back on the track for timed workouts Sunday.

Pioneer of Medina and West Omaha have been entered since for main-track races Saturday at Fair Grounds. Pioneer of Medina is in the 1 1/16-mile, $100,000 Tenacious Stakes. West Omaha is set to go in the $100,000 Untapable, a one-mile-and-70-yard points prep for the Kentucky Oaks (G1).

Fidget and Gettysburg Address have been nominated to the 1 1/16-mile Smarty Jones Stakes on New Year’s Day at Oaklawn. Like the Springboard Mile, the race is a 10-5-3-2-1 points prep for Kentucky Derby 2024.

Friday’s scratches came without any immediate explanation. Remington Park and Oklahoma racing officials said trainers do not have to give reasons for removing horses from stakes races there.

Ownership representatives for the four horses said either they did not know why the horses were scratched or could not be reached for comment.