Cobalt Blue withdrawn following so-so workouts

Merv Griffin’s colt, Cobalt Blue, was withdrawn from the Kentucky Derby on Tuesday, leaving trainer Doug O’Neill with two starters.

Cobalt Blue’s seventh-place finish in the Illinois Derby and less-than stellar workouts led Griffin to decide to skip the Derby.

“I talked to Merv and he thought it was in the best interest of the horse not to tax him one-and-a-quarter miles,” O’Neill said at Churchill Downs. “We’re going to slow it down, go back to California and look for a race.”

O’Neill said he’d been encouraged by the way Cobalt Blue galloped Tuesday morning with blinkers, but left the decision to Griffin. Cobalt Blue would have been the entertainment mogul’s first Derby starter. He had 2005 juvenile champion Stevie Wonderboy last year, but the colt’s Derby hopes were derailed by an injury.

With the defections of Cobalt Blue and Xchanger, Teuflesberg and Imawildandcrazyguy are poised to make the Derby field, which is limited to 20 horses ranked according to graded-stakes earnings.

O’Neill’s two likely starters are Great Hunter and Liquidity.

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Queen Elizabeth II is scheduled to make her first visit to the Kentucky Derby on Saturday.

The queen and her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, are to visit Jamestown, Va., on Friday to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the first British settlement in North America, and are due in Washington, D.C., on Sunday.

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Santa Anita Oaks winner Rags To Riches was installed as the 5-2 morning-line favorite for the $500,000 Kentucky Oaks on Friday, a Grade I race for 3-year-old fillies.

A daughter of A.P. Indy trained by Todd Pletcher, Rags To Riches will be ridden by Garrett Gomez. Others in the 14-horse field include 5-1 second choice Dreaming Of Anna, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.

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robyn.norwood@latimes.com