Alphabet Soup, the upset winner of the 1996 Breeders' Cup Classic, was euthanized Friday at Old Friends in Georgetown, Ky., after battling chronic kidney disease. At the time of his death, the 31-year-old son of Cozzene was the oldest living Breeders' Cup Classic winner.

Alphabet Soup, who stood for Frank Stronach’s Adena Springs in various locations, had been pensioned at Old Friends since 2015.

ARCADIA, Calif. – David Hofmans hiked into the box seats at Santa Anita the other morning to watch Melatonin work, reached into his pocket, and realized he’d left his stopwatch in the tack room back at his barn.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Alphabet Soup doesn’t like to be passed.

“At night, when I come home and it’s dark, I open up the gate, and first I hear him and then see him – he kind of glows in the dark,” Old Friends founder and president Michael Blowen said. “He comes over, and it’s like paying a toll on the Massachusetts Turnpike – I’ve got to feed him a carrot in order to get up the hill.”

Alphabet Soup, winner of the 1996 Breeders’ Cup Classic and a longtime sire for Frank Stronach’s Adena Springs operation, has been pensioned from stud duty and retired to Old Friends Equine in Georgetown, Ky.

The 24-year-old son of Cozzene previously resided at Adena Springs in Paris, Ky., bringing to an end a stallion career that also included stints in New York, Florida, and Ontario. He stood the 2015 breeding season for an advertised fee of $3,500.

Now that David Hofmans has proved he can win Breeders' Cup races of all shapes and sizes with horses such as Alphabet Soup, Adoration, and Desert Code, dash the Triple Crown hopes of a hungry nation in the Belmont Stakes with Touch Gold, and develop any number of fast young fillies and colts into major stakes winners, let's see if he can finally plug a hole in his resume and win a decent race on the grass with an older horse over a distance of ground.