Champion Awesome Feather retired by Adena Springs

Awesome Feather, the champion 2-year-old filly of 2010, has been retired, Adena Springs Farm announced on Thursday.

Breeding plans have not yet been decided for Awesome Feather, a 4-year-old Awesome of Course filly, who will begin her broodmare career at Adena owner Frank Stronach’s farm in Paris, Ky.

Awesome Feather concluded her career with 10 victories from 11 starts for earnings of $1,912,746. Her only loss came when she ran sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic Nov. 2 at Santa Anita Park in her final career start.

Awesome Feather began her career racing for breeder Jacks or Better Farm, winning all six starts in her 2-year-old campaign for trainer Stanley Gold. After breaking her maiden at first asking, she ripped through four stakes victories at Calder Race Course, taking the JJ’s Dream Stakes before sweeping her division of the Florida Stallion Series. She capped the season with a 2 1/4-length victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Churchill Downs to secure her championship.

Two days after the Breeders’ Cup, Awesome Feather was purchased for $2.3 million by Adena Springs at the Fasig-Tipton November sale. She was subsequently transferred to trainer Chad Brown, but suffered a tendon injury that forced her to miss the major spring and summer races of her 3-year-old season.

Awesome Feather returned from an 11-month layoff to win an overnight stakes at Belmont Park in October 2011 before romping to a 5 1/4-length victory in the Grade 1 Gazelle Stakes at Aqueduct. She stretched her unbeaten streak to nine with a win in the Florida Sunshine Millions Distaff Stakes the following January, but then went to the sidelines again.

Coming off another layoff, this time of eight months, she rolled by 11 1/4 lengths in the Nasty Storm Stakes at Belmont in her final prep for the Ladies’ Classic.

Brown said that when he was working as an assistant to trainer Bobby Frankel, “I was around several of the Stronachs’ best runners, and Awesome Feather was right up there with the best of them. She is a rare horse to overcome a tendon injury, like she did, and maintain top form. She is truly special.”

Awesome Feather is out of the multiple stakes-winning Gone West mare Precious Feather, dam of five winners from six to race, including stakes-placed Brooks ‘n Down.