Champion She Feels Pretty retired

The champion turf mare She Feels Pretty has been retired from racing with plans, if time allows, to breed her this spring.

She Feels Pretty, trained by Cherie DeVaux for the Lael Stables of Roy and Gretchen Jackson, finished a good second, beaten a half-length, behind the French filly Gezora in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf on Nov. 1 and subsequently was sent to a Florida farm for a winter break. DeVaux hoped She Feels Pretty would return to the racetrack early this year, but the mare progressed no further in her training than walking under tack at the farm. A series of scans revealed She Feels Pretty had an injury that wasn’t getting much better.

“She had an issue that just was going to take even longer to resolve, and she’d have no time for a campaign,” DeVaux said. “She kept needing more time.”

Bred by Payson Stud, She Feels Pretty is out of the More Than Ready mare Summer Sweet and is most successful horse sired by Japan-bred Karakontie, who won the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Mile as a 3-year old. At 2, She Feels Pretty won the Grade 1 Natalma at Woodbine by more than four lengths, and DeVaux’s decision to race She Feels Pretty in blinkers late in her 3-year-old campaign took a talented horse to another level.

Making her first start in blinkers, she won the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup two Octobers ago by six lengths, capping her season with a California victory in the Grade 1 American Oaks. Last year, she won the Grade 3 Modesty, the Grade 1 New York, and the Grade 1 E.P. Taylor, and in addition to her Breeders’ Cup second, She Feels Pretty finished second by a head in the Grade 1 Diana. She’s retired with a 13-8-3-2 record and earnings of $2.55 million.

“She never ran a bad race, mentally was always there, a really nice filly to train who always gave you confidence,” DeVaux said. “She’d be the best horse I’ve trained so far.”

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