Trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. confirmed that IEAH Stable’s and Paul Pompa Jr.’s Big Brown will not run in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita on October 25 after he sustained an injury during a workout this morning. Later in the day, Michael Iavarone of IEAH said that Big Brown was retired and will stand at Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Kentucky.

“It looks like he grabbed his hoof in some kind of way,” Dutrow said after Big Brown, the nation’s top three-year-old, returned from Aqueduct’s firm turf course, where he worked six furlongs with defending Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Kip Deville in 1:12.93, breezing. “It is his right-front foot. It happened during the workout.”

Said Iavarone: “He and Kip Deville were like two F-16s in formation. I was very happy with the work, until I got back to the barn and saw the look on Rick’s face. I knew something bad had happened.”

Hoof problems are nothing new to Big Brown. After winning the Florida Derby, Kentucky Derby and Preakness, Big Brown came to Belmont Park where he hoped to become racing’s 12th Triple Crown winner in the June 7th Belmont Stakes. He suffered a quarter-crack on his left-front hoof in the days leading to that race that drew plenty of attention, but it was under control when he ran in the Belmont Stakes.

In the Belmont, he was pulled up by jockey Kent Desormeaux, but Big Brown’s connections insisted that it was not the quarter-crack that was the cause.

Big Brown then came back to win the Grade 1Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park, where he had to rally to catch Coal Play for a 1 ¾-length victory on the main track on August 3, and also the nine-furlong Monmouth Stakes on September 13, where he met older horses for the first time, lead all the way and defeated Proudinsky by a neck on the turf.

“The concern now is infection, but we’re on top of that and it is not a life-threatening injury,” Iavarone said. “This is all about bad timing. There is no way to get him ready in time for the Breeders’ Cup, and since we have to ship him to Three Chimneys by the end of the year anyway, it’s best to retire him and keep him in New York for a few weeks before we send him out.”