Breeders' Cup Marathon winner Afleet Again dies in Korea

Afleet Again, the longshot winner of the 2011 Breeders’ Cup Marathon, died in Korea on April 12 after a bout of colic. He was 11.

The cause of death was originally reported by Alastair Middleton, the Korean Racing Authority’s English-language racecaller, on his website “Horse Racing in Korea.”

Afleet Again, a son of Afleet Alex, was bred in Kentucky by Chuck Zacney’s Roll Z Dice Racing Stable and he raced under Zacney’s nom-de-course Cash is King for his first two and a half seasons. Robert Reid Jr. trained Afleet Again throughout his career.

The horse began racing at 2 in the Mid-Atlantic region, eventually chalking up his maiden win at Philadelphia Park in 2009. After winning again at Philadelphia in January of his 3-year-old campaign, Afleet Again moved to Aqueduct during the Kentucky Derby prep season to test graded stakes competition. He came through in the Grade 3 Withers Stakes at 24-1, but he was not Triple Crown nominated.

Afleet Again competed in some of that summer’s top stakes races on the East Coast, including the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational and Travers Stakes, but his best finish for the remainder of the year was a second in the Grade 3 Pegasus Stakes at Monmouth Park.

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The colt was riding an 11-race losing streak when Zacney sold him privately to Robert and Susan Kragnel’s Kasey K Racing Stable. The streak was up to 13 when Afleet Again was entered in the 2011 Breeders’ Cup Marathon at Churchill Downs. It was a rough trip, but Afleet Again found his way to the lead in the final sixteenth and drew off to win by 2 1/4 lengths at odds of 41-1, the longest price on the board.

Afleet Again raced once more after his upset victory, finishing fourth in the Grade 3 Valedictory Stakes at Woodbine a month after the Breeders’ Cup. He retired with four wins in 25 starts over three seasons of racing for $695,299

The connections were unsuccessful in finding a stallion deal for Afleet Again in the season following his retirement, so he was offered as a stallion prospect at the 2012 Keeneland November breeding stock sale, where he sold to Korea’s Yoon Heung Yul for $30,000.

Afleet Again stood six seasons in Korea, residing privately at Happy Farm, where his largest book featured 51 mares.

He finished sixth on Korea’s first-crop sire list in 2016, which also featured veterans including top three Chapel Royal, Simon Pure, and Rock Hard Ten, who were counted as newcomers to the country. The horse improved to fifth among second-crop sires in 2017, and he sits in the same position among third-crop sires this year.

Afleet Again still seeks his first stakes winner, but his top runner of the current season, the gelding Cheonha Gamdong, has won his past two starts. He most recently prevailed in a lower-class Korean-bred race on April 22 as the heavy favorite.