All Too Hard retired to Vinery Stud in Australia

All Too Hard, the four-time Australian Group 1 winner who is a half-brother to Horse of the Year Black Caviar, has retired from racing, according to Australian news reports.

Vinery Stud announced the 3-year-old’s retirement on Sunday, with general manager Peter Orton telling media that “The horse has got nothing left to prove.”

All Too Hard, a son of Casino Prince and the Desert Sun mare Helsinge, will stand at Vinery this year for $66,000 in Australian currency, or about $67,591.

Vinery bought All Too Hard late last year from Patinack Farms, owned by the financially embattled mining tycoon Nathan Tinkler. Rick Jamieson’s Gilgai Farm bred All Too Hard, and Tinkler paid $1,062,310 for the colt as a yearling at the 2011 Inglis Easter yearling sale. The underbidder that day was Black Caviar’s owner, Neil Werrett, who is a partner in Vinery. Three of the colt’s Group 1 wins—the C. F. Orr Stakes and the Futurity Stakes at Caulfield and the All-Aged Stakes at Randwick, the last in his final start on April 27—were for his new owners. Before his sale last year, he won the Caulfield Guineas for Patinack.

“It was a difficult decision for us to retire a colt with so much more to offer as a racehorse,” Orton said in announcing All Too Hard’s retirement. “All Too Hard has done all we could have asked for and more.”

In addition to his four Group 1 wins, All Too Hard won a pair of Group 2 races and the ungraded Talindert Stakes last year. He ran second in the Group 1 Cox Plate and Inglis Sires’ Produce Stakes and also was third in the San Domenico Stakes, a Group 3. Trained by the team of Michael, Wayne, and John Hawkes, he retires with a record of seven wins from 12 starts and earnings of $2,364,798.

Vinery had been considering a run at Royal Ascot in England next month, a plan that now falls by the wayside. Instead, Orton said, the farm has been “inundated” with booking requests and will finalize All Too Hard’s first book of mares soon.

Vinery reportedly paid Patinack $30 million Australian, or almost $31 million, for All Too Hard last December in a package deal that also included the stallion Onemorenomore, winner of the 2009 Group 1 Australian Jockey Club Champagne Stakes.