Coming off his Breeders’ Cup classic victory, Authentic has retired to Spendthrift Farm in Kentucky, where he will stand for $75,000. The three year old raced only eight times, but earned an impressive $6,191,200. In addition to the Breeders’ Cup Classic the colt won the Kentucky Derby, the G1 Haskell, G2 San Felipe and G3 Sham. He was second in the Preakness and the Santa Anita Derby.
It seems that very few stallions continue to race past their three-year old season if they perform well — I suppose it’s too risky to keep them racing and expose them to the potential of injury. Look at Honor AP, who strained a tendon in the Kentucky Derby, and was retired to stud because it would “take too long” to bring him back to racing. I thought he was the most magnificent of the three-year olds this year and am sorry we won’t see him run again.
In the upper echelons of horse racing, there are very few “War Horses” any more, like Seabiscuit who raced 89 times! It does make you wonder about the durability of the thoroughbreds running today.
We’ll just have to look at the fillies — Swiss Skydiver is destined to run in 2021, with Gamine another probable. I guess for the mares, racing another season just means one less foal on the ground; for the colts, there’s a lot more money in play.