Owners sue over White Abarrio’s scratch from Breeders’ Cup

White Abarrio’s principal owners filed a more than $10 million lawsuit Tuesday over the decision by veterinarians to scratch their horse just minutes before the 2025 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile.

Gary Barber and C2 Racing Stable, operated by brothers Clint and Mark Cornett, named the Breeders’ Cup, the California Horse Racing Board and Del Mar Thoroughbred Club as the defendants in the Los Angeles County Superior Court case.

White Abarrio owners seek inquiry into Breeders' Cup 2025 scratch.

“As White Abarrio was warming up in the post parade, (the) defendants decided to ‘late scratch’ White Abarrio because of his ‘choppy’ gait, which they described as ‘unsound in the (left front),’ barring him from competing for a share of the $1 million purse,” attorneys for Barber and the Cornetts said in court documents. “Defendants’ conduct was not a mere exercise of reasonable veterinary judgment. It had no rational basis and constituted multiple violations of the regulatory rules and written protocols ... that govern how a Breeders’ Cup horse can be scratched. By ignoring those requirements and relying instead on a last-second, subjective impression, defendants breached their legal obligations to (Barber and the Cornetts), unlawfully deprived White Abarrio of his contracted-for opportunity to run in the Breeders’ Cup and inflicted immense harm on plaintiffs.”

Barber and the Cornetts are asking for “general and-or compensatory damages in an amount to be determined at trial for all injuries suffered as a result of (the) defendants’ wrongdoing, currently believed to be in excess of $10 million.”

A Breeders Cup spokesperson said in a text message that “Breeders’ Cup Limited does not comment on threatened or pending litigation.”

“Del Mar does not, as a matter of policy, comment on ongoing litigation,” DMTC president Josh Rubinstein said in a separate statement. “We look forward to presenting our defense to any allegations made against us in court at the appropriate time.”

Horse Racing Nation is waiting for reaction from the CHRB, which also was contacted shortly after Kentucky-based Craig Robertson, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, made reporters aware of the lawsuit Tuesday afternoon.

Antonio Pagnano’s La Milagrosa Stable, listed by Equibase as the third owner of White Abarrio, did not join the lawsuit.

Barber and the Cornetts are making their case around White Abarrio’s “characteristic gait.” They said the decision to scratch the multimillionaire horse trained by Saffie Joseph Jr. “stunned all who were familiar with White Abarrio ... It was the same gait that had been noted in almost every pre-race veterinary inspection of White Abarrio throughout his career and in the numerous, daily pre-race veterinary inspections by defendants’ own veterinarians leading up to the Breeders’ Cup race. ... For seven straight days before the race, (the) defendants’ veterinarian team had inspected, tested and scanned White Abarrio. They noted his gait. Yet every day they declared him ‘racing sound.’ ”

As an exhibit in their case, Barber and the Cornetts included the results of an Oct. 27 PET scan made by the University of California, Davis. They say it “objectively confirmed that, from an advanced imaging standpoint, White Abarrio’s limbs were within normal limits for a racehorse in training and did not reveal any pathology that would render him unfit or unsound to race.”

Because it happened only minutes before the Dirt Mile, the scratching of White Abarrio by at least one CHRB doctor was the most visible of the 13 vet scratches during the Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 renewal of the Breeders’ Cup. The findings never are made public by the race organizers, because, as one source put it in 2024, “it’s the same thing as doctor-patient confidentiality. We might be violating the legal privacy of the horse’s owner.”

White Abarrio subsequently was placed on the CHRB vets list for “unsoundness” with no further reason given.

“There is no explanation for (the) defendants’ decision to scratch White Abarrio mere minutes before the race,” the lawsuit said. “Nothing had changed about White Abarrio’s condition between his final pre-race examination that morning or the prior week’s daily examination and the race a few hours later.”

During the championships CHRB executive director Scott Chaney downplayed the fact that there had been 13 vet scratches at the 2024 Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita and what would be just as many in 2025 at Del Mar.

“Ultimately the Breeders’ Cup scratches are sort of unremarkable for our vets,” Chaney told FanDuel TV during a Nov. 1 telecast. “I know that’s tough to hear, but it happens to be the truth. At the end of the day, in this case it’s made by two folks, two of the best regulatory veterinarians in the world. Dr. Jeff Blea, who’s our equine medical director, and our chief official veterinarian Dr. (Timothy) Grande. I put them up against any vet on the planet.”

Asked about 21 vet scratches April 4 on a big day of stakes at Keeneland, Aqueduct and Santa Anita, Blea said, “I don’t know the background regarding all of those scratches. However, I do have confidence in the system.”

Going into the Breeders’ Cup, White Abarrio had not raced in more than two months after his fourth-place finish in the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup on Aug. 31 at Saratoga. He finally made his return Jan. 24, when he took the lead in the homestretch only to finish second to stablemate Skippylongstocking in the Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1) at Gulfstream Park.

Now 7, the entire son of Race Day is entered to face 2025 classic winners Sovereignty and Journalism on Saturday in the Oaklawn Handicap (G2) in Arkansas.