Broad Brush euthanized at 26

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Former leading sire Broad Brush was euthanized on May 15 due to the infirmities of old age, Gainesway Farm in Lexington announced Tuesday.

The Ack Ack horse was 26 and had been pensioned at Gainesway since June 2004.

Broad Brush led the North American stallion ranks in 1994, the year his son Concern won the Breeders' Cup Classic.

Broad Brush also sired the 2002 champion 3-year-old filly Farda Amiga, winner of that year's Kentucky Oaks and Alabama Stakes, and the Grade 1 winners Include, Pompeii, Mongoose, and Schossberg. He also sired such Japanese standouts as Nobo True and Broad Appeal.

Broad Brush was a homebred for Robert Meyerhoff and was trained by Richard Small. He won 14 races - 12 stakes - from 27 starts. In 1987, he won the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap, beating 1986 Kentucky Derby winner Ferdinand, and the Suburban Handicap. He won the Meadowlands Cup and Wood Memorial in 1986. He finished third in both the 1986 Kentucky Derby and Preakness. And he equaled the track record of 2:00.80 for 1 1/4 miles at the now-defunct Garden State Park when he won the Grade 3 Trenton Handicap in 1987.

Broad Brush earned $2,656,793.

He was out of the Warnerton Farms-bred broodmare Hay Patcher, a stakes-winning daughter of Hoist the Flag. Broad Brush was her best foal, but she also produced stakes winner Hay Halo and group or graded performers Homme de Paille and Hey Majesty.

"He produced some very high-class and tough racehorses, which were all attributes he had," Gainesway representative Michael Hernon said of Broad Brush. "He's also proving to be a very effective broodmare sire, so the bloodline will live through his daughters, and of course Include has made a good start to his stud career."

Hernon said Broad Brush has been buried between the farm office and stallion complex at Gainesway, near the graves of In Reality and Cozzene.

"He had a lot of personality and he was a very competitive racehorse at a very high level," he said. "He was full of energy and had a lot of try in him, and he just had a lot of pizzazz."