Report: Injury counts Red Ruby out of Saratoga's Alabama Stakes

Saratoga's Grade 1 Alabama Stakes, at one point on track to be the race of the summer, lost another of its major contenders Wednesday when the Daily Racing Form's David Grening reported that Red Ruby has suffered a splint-bone injury.

Trainer Kellyn Gorder told DRF the last-out Grade 3 Delaware Oaks winner is "just getting stall rest" as connections prepare to X-ray their filly again.

This isn't the first injury for the daughter Tiznow who, upon winning the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan in May, did so having come back following a freak barn incident. Red Ruby missed the Kentucky Oaks due to what Gorder called a "freak" accident.

“Ruby had trained and was cooling out and horse in front of her spooked from something and kind of ran backward," the trainer said in May. "Red Ruby saw the horse coming at her and just turned around and kind of just fled— like [dragged] the hotwalker halfway down the shedrow into the middle aisle-way and crashed into the metal ladder that goes to the hay loft."

This latest injury could count Red Ruby out for the rest of the year, according to DRF, though Gorder said "She can come back 100 percent -- better than what she was."

In addition to Red Ruby, the Aug. 18 Alabama, a Grade 1, $600,000 race will lack Wonder Gadot, the filly whose connections want to take on the boys instead in the Aug. 25 Travers Stakes. Grade 2 winner Coach Rocks and Talk Veuve to Me, the Indiana Oaks winner, remain probable for the Alabama.