Accelerate to stand at Lane's End after retirement

Multiple Grade 1-winning multi-millionaire Accelerate, a leading contender for the Breeders’ Cup Classic, will stand at Lane’s End Farm upon retirement, the farm announced Wednesday.

Earlier this month, Accelerate, who is trained by John Sadler for Hronis Racing, won the Pacific Classic by 12 ½ lengths. He became the third horse to win the Santa Anita Handicap, Gold Cup – now run at Santa Anita, formerly at Hollywood Park – and Pacific Classic in the same year, joining Lava Man and Game On Dude.

“Accelerate has proven to be the best mile-and-a-quarter horse in training in America,” Lane’s End’s Bill Farish said in a release. “In his five starts this year, he’s won four, including three Grade 1's, and has run three of the five fastest Beyers all year: 115, 111, and 110.”

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Accelerate, 5, has a career mark of 20-8-5-5 with earnings of more than $2.3 million. He also won the Grade 2 Los Alamitos Derby and the Shared Belief Stakes in 2016; last year’s Grade 2 San Diego Handicap over Arrogate; and the Grade 2 San Pasqual earlier this year. He owns seven graded stakes placings, including a third in the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile.

“Accelerate has been a superstar from the beginning,” Sadler said. “He was a good 3-year-old, running third to two very good horses in the Breeders’ Cup, he beat Arrogate as a 4-year-old, and this year he’s proved he is one of if not the best active horses in America.”

Accelerate is by Lookin At Lucky, whose late classic sire, Smart Strike, stood at Lane’s End throughout his career.

Accelerate is out of the stakes-placed Awesome Again mare Issues, also dam of Grade 1-placed stakes winner Daddy D T and Grade 3-placed stakes winner Amarish. The mare has a yearling colt by Bernardini consigned to next month’s Keeneland September yearling sale.

This is the extended family of champion Smart Angle, Grade 1 winner Wagon Limit, Grade 1-placed Grade 2 winner Puzzlement, and prominent sire Smarten.

“Accelerate is the kind of horse that we seek out, that we believe in,” Lane’s End’s Will Farish said. “Tough, sound, fast, classic-distance handicap horses. These are the type of racehorses that have made Lane’s End stallions what it is today.”