Kentucky Derby pre-race second choice Buddha was declared out of the race on Friday morning because of a sore left front foot.

Buddha worked on Thursday and cooled out sound. But on Friday morning when he was taken from his stall at 5 a.m., he was favoring his left leg. Dr. Larry Bramlage, an AAEP On-Call veterinarian working the Derby, said it was too close to the race to do any diagnostics and have the horse be ready for the Derby.

Bramlage said he hoped the horse just had a bruised foot, and that nothing was obvious in the morning.

“You have to have a diagnosis to have a prognosis,” said Bramlage, adding that veterinarian Ken Reed of Louisville, Ky., Buddha’s primary vet, would take X rays of the colt later in the morning