Jimmy Fortune felt it was in the best interests of Raven's Pass to give up the mount in the Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita on Saturday week.
Fortune has ridden the Elusive Quality colt on 10 of his 11 career starts and was on board when John Gosden's charge secured a first Group One success in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot.
However, Fortune is currently in the middle of a 10-day suspension and felt he would not have been ready to have done himself justice.
'I have decided to give up the ride on Raven's Pass as it's very hard for any jockey to go into a Breeders' Cup without having ridden beforehand,' Fortune told Teletext.
'I knew as soon as I got the ban that I was in trouble, so I sat down with John Gosden and we spoke about it.
'If I could have ridden on Friday, or even in two or three races before the Classic, things might have been different.
'To go into a race as important as the Breeders' Cup Classic on my first ride in 11 days isn't fair to the horse, or to the owner.
'I would hate to have been the cause of the horse getting beaten. It wasn't a case of me saying I wouldn't be fit enough, it's just John (Gosden) asked me what was best to do, and we decided to let Frankie (Dettori) ride him.
'The Breeders' Cup Classic is the first attempt at a mile and quarter for the horse, but I'm pretty sure he'll stay.
'He outstayed Henrythenavigator at Ascot and we ran out of ground to catch him in the Sussex Stakes, so you'd definitely say he'd get a mile and one.
'The surface is different to the dirt, and I find at our all-weather tracks that you almost need a mile horse to win over a mile and a quarter, so you never know.'
Raven's Pass will instead by ridden in America by Frankie Dettori.
