Stream of Gold, Gulfstream record-holder, retired

Grade 2 winner Stream of Gold, runner-up in the 2007 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic and a course-record-setter at Gulfstream Park, has retired from racing at age 10.

A bay Rainbow Quest gelding, Stream of Gold earned $738,293 in his 33-race career. He will now head for Watchtower Farm, a New Hampshire retirement facility, according to Gail Hirt, who led a fund-raising effort on Alex Brown Racing and Facebook to buy Stream of Gold privately from owner Annette Ellis.

“He just left Fairmount Park today, and we’re very glad to have him,” Hirt said. “He’ll be in good company in New Hampshire. They have some good horses there, and it’s a great facility.”

Bred in Ireland by Ballymacoll Stud, Stream of Gold started his career in Great Britain, where he won 3 of 8 starts. He also ran five times in the United Arab Emirates and once in Canada. But he spent the bulk of his career in the States. He won the MacDiarmida Handicap in 2008 at Gulfstream Park, setting a 1 3/8-mile course record of 2:10.87. Stream of Gold finished second behind 2007’s eventual turf champion English Channel in the Turf Classic and placed in four other stakes, including a third in the Grade 1 Gulfstream Park Turf Stakes in 2008.

Stream of Gold is out of the Group 1-placed stakes-winner River Dancer, by Irish River. He’s a full brother to 1995 Irish 200o Guineas winner Spectrum.