Beulah Park: Newly retired Catlaunch to lead post parade for Ruff/Kirchberg Memorial

GROVE CITY, Ohio – Catlaunch, one of the most decorated Ohio-bred runners of all time, was retired at age 12 this week and on Saturday will lead the post parade at Beulah Park for the $50,000 Ruff/Kirchberg Memorial, a race he won four times.

Catlaunch was Ohio-bred horse of the year in 2008 and 2011, sprint champion in 2011, and Ohio-accredited male champion five times. He won 23 stakes in his career, although he didn’t win his first until the age of 5.

“The first stake he won [the Babst/Palacios Memorial] was named after his former trainer who passed away, Albert Palacios,” trainer Ivan Vazquez said. “We always felt like he had something to do with how well he did in stakes.”

Catlaunch won 40 races from 104 starts and earned $1,122,309.

“It is just the right time for him to retire,” Vazquez said. “He would run a few more years if we let him, but he is not 100 percent anymore and there is no way we can let anything bad happen to him after all he has given us.”

Catlaunch, a son of Noble Cat out of the Relaunch mare Skilaunch, came to hand after being gelded as a 3-year-old.

“He was crazy when he was 3, we gelded him, and he became a much better horse,” Vazquez said. “The other big change we made was when we took the blinkers off.

“Horses would go by and he wouldn’t see them coming. Once we took the blinkers off, he could see them coming and would make sure they didn’t get by him. He is such a competitor.”

Plans are for Catlaunch to retire to the Old Friends retirement facility in Georgetown, Ky.

“It will be nice that he will just be and hour and a half down the road and we can go visit anytime,” Vazquez said. “My shed row sure won’t be the same without him in it, he is a very special horse.”

Raise The Reward will try to win his second straight race in the Ruff/Kirchberg Memorial after taking the $100,000 Best of Ohio Endurance on Oct. 12. Trained by Jeff Radosevich, Raise the Reward led from start to finish in the 1 1/4-mile Endurance at Thistledown and hopes to do the same in the 1 1/8-mile Ruff/Kirchberg.

Raise the Reward has won three times this year, including the George Lewis Memorial at Thistledown on July 13. The 7 year-old gelding is one of only two horses in the seven-horse field to have won at 1 1/8 miles. Startin Something, a 5-year-old mare trained by Tim Hamm, is the other.

Plain Ol Willard finished third in the Endurance behind Raise the Reward but the shorter distance and a switch to Beulah Park may be what he needs to turn the tables. Trained by Tony Lowry, Plain Ol Willard has won four of seven starts at Beulah Park. His last win came three starts ago in the mile and 70-yard Horizon on Aug. 11.

The Ruff/Kirchberg Memorial is for Ohio-accredited horses. Accredited is the more restrictive of the two Ohio-bred categories, as both the dam and sire must be reside in Ohio.