Rick Dutrow said Wednesday he has had a virus for several days and did not feel well enough to travel.
"I would go in a minute, but I just don't feel well," Dutrow said in a telephone interview. "To go down there when I'm not on top of my game would not be right."
The Subcommittee on Com-merce, Trade, and Consumer Protection had been looking forward to hearing from the trainer known for his candor and for methods that were brought into question after his star horse's stunning last-place finish at this month's Belmont Stakes.
Dutrow said he used a legal steroid on Big Brown -- although the last dose was given in April -- and the horse also ran the race on a quarter crack in the left front hoof .
"I'm sorry he's not here," said Rep. Ed Whitfield of Kentucky, the subcommittee's ranking Repub-lican. "We had a lot of questions for him."
BREEDERS' CUP CHALLENGE: The Breeders' Cup Challenge is adding four races that will give the winners automatic bids to the Breeders' Cup on Oct. 24-25.
Three of the four added challenge races are automatic qualifiers for the new $500,000 Breeders' Cup Marathon.
The added races are the Green-wood Cup at Philadelphia Park, the Cougar II at Del Mar and the Turfway Park Fall Championship at Turfway Park in Kentucky. The one-mile Tiznow Stakes at Louisiana Downs is a qualifier for the $1 million Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile.
