8-year-old Chester House is euthanized

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Juddmonte Farms's Grade 1 winner and millionaire Chester House was euthanized in Lexington on Saturday due to the effects of a form of bone marrow cancer. The Mr. Prospector stallion was 8 and was standing his third season at stud. His first foals are yearlings this year.

Juddmonte officials were not available to comment, but the farm issued a statement Monday that said Chester House began showing symptoms of anemia in May, then developed pneumonia. Veterinarians performed a bone marrow biopsy and discovered that the horse had myelodysplastic syndrome, a form of cancer that disrupts normal production of blood cells.

"A treatment of chemotherapy was initiated, but Chester House's condition deteriorated rapidly in the third week of June, and in the end he lost the use of 80 percent of his lungs," the Juddmonte statement said.

Veterinarians from the Hagyard Davdison McGee clinic Lexington, the University of California at Davis, Ohio State University, and Cornell University concluded that Chester House's condition was terminal, prompting farm officials to allow the horse's euthanasia.

Chester House covered 123 mares this season, and 112 of those have been reported in foal, according to the farm.

Chester House was a son of Broodmare of the Year Toussaud, by El Gran Senor. He was a half-brother to Belmont Stakes winner Empire Maker, Grade 1 winners Honest Lady and Chiselling, and Grade 2 winner Decarchy. Chester House, Toussaud's first foal, started his career in England, where he won the Group 3 Brigadier Gerard Stakes and finished third in both the 1998 and 1999 runnings of the Juddmonte International Stakes, sponsored by his owner and breeder, Saudi prince Khaled Abdullah. He also won a pair of smaller stakes, the Steventon and the Huxley, in England.

Chester House moved to the U.S. and Bobby Frankel's barn at age 4, and it was on this side of the Atlantic that he had his greatest triumphs, winning the Grade 1 Arlington Million in 2000. He also finished second that year in the Eddie Read Handicap and third in the Explosive Bid and Excelsior Breeders' Cup Handicap.

He retired in 2000 with a lifetime record of 21-6-4-4.