Triple Crown contender Big Brown battles hoof injury

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2008

ELMONT, New York (AFP) — Triple Crown contender Big Brown has missed two days of training with a left hoof injury, trainer Rick Dutrow jnr said Sunday.

The colt, trying to become the first in 30 years to sweep US flat racing's Triple Crown races, has a quarter crack - a vertical crack in the hoof wall - on the inside of his left front hoof.

Dutrow admitted he was somewhat concerned by the injury.

But the trainer also said it would not prevent Big Brown, winner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, from running in the Belmont Stakes on June 7.

"We didn't know until Saturday that it was a quarter crack," Dutrow said. "It scares us this happened, but this has nothing to do with his ability to finish what he started.

"It's bad it happened,...