Untapable to be bred to Frankel

Champion Untapable, who was retired in June, will travel to England to be bred to unbeaten champion Frankel in 2017, her first season as a broodmare. David Fiske, manager for the mare’s owner and breeder, Winchell Thoroughbreds, confirmed the pairing Friday evening at Churchill Downs.

Frankel, by international titan Galileo, is based at owner-breeder Juddmonte's Banstead Manor Stud in Newmarket, England. Untapable is currently in quarantine in Kentucky and will ship overseas next month. She will be boarded at the British National Stud in Newmarket. The mare will likely remain in England for two seasons, and may be covered by Frankel in both 2017 and 2018.

A decision has not been finalized on whether the Winchells will campaign the resulting foals or sell them.

“[Ron Winchell]’s concern was that [the foal] will probably be a turf horse, and that’s not our thing,” Fiske said. “But if it’s pretty, it’ll be valuable, and that is our thing.”

Untapable, trained by Steve Asmussen for Winchell Thoroughbreds, concluded her career with a record of 20-9-5-2 and earnings of $3,926,625. A Grade 2 winner as a juvenile, she earned the Eclipse Award as champion 3-year-old filly of 2014, when she went unbeaten against her own sex, marked by signature triumphs in the Kentucky Oaks and Breeders’ Cup Distaff. She posted additional Grade 1 scores that season in the Mother Goose – by 9 1/4 lengths – and Cotillion. Untapable’s other Grade 1 victory and lone win following that 2014 campaign came in the 2015 Apple Blossom.

Untapable is the leading U.S. earner for North America’s two-time leading sire Tapit, whom the Winchells campaigned and maintain an interest in. She is out of the Prized mare Fun House, also dam of Grade 1 winner Paddy O'Prado.

Frankel is the sire of 18 winners from 40 starters from his highly anticipated first crop of 2-year-olds to date, for earnings of more than $1.2 million. Leading that group are Group 2 winner Queen Kindly; Group 3 winners Mi Suerte, Fair Eva, Frankuus, and Toulifaut; and stakes-placed Cunco.