The 2015 Little Brown Jug attracted 15 pacing colts, but one of them wasn't speedster In The Arsenal.
A winner of six in 13 starts this year -- including eliminations for the North America Cup, Empire Breeders and Meadowlands Pace along with the half-mile contested Art Rooney elim and Final at Yonkers Raceway -- In The Arsenal has reportedly been battling illness for the last stretch of races.
"We're all disappointed we're not going to the Jug because he's so good on a half-mile track, but he came out of the race at Tioga (the Empire Breeders Classic) sick, and since then we've been trying to get him well," trainer Kelvin Harrison told harnessracing.com. "I raced him in the Messenger because there weren't eliminations and we thought we had him well, but we found out he still had a guttural pouch issue."
"We think we have him pretty well cleaned up, and if the Jug was an ordinary race, I believe he would be good to go, because I trained him [Saturday] morning and he was very good," Harrison continued. "But with two heats, the Jug is no ordinary race, and you've got to be 110 percent there."
With the Little Brown Jug off the schedule, In The Arsenal will be pointed for the Grand Circuit events in Lexington at The Red Mile before the 2015 Breeders Crown at Woodbine Racetrack.
Breeder White Birch Farm of New Jersey hold the papers on In The Arsenal (American Ideal - Ladyotra) along with In The Arsenal Racing of Long Beach, N.Y. The sophomore has won half of his 24 lifetime starts and banked more than $850,000 in his career.