Corniche, Eclipse Award champ at 2, retired

Corniche, last year's Eclipse Award champion 2-year-old male, has been retired from racing and will enter stud in 2023 at Coolmore's Ashford Stud in Kentucky after emerging from his only start this season with an injury.

Corniche, by Quality Road, won all three of his outings last year for Peter Fluor and K.C. Weiner's Speedway Stables, which purchased him for $1.5 million at the Ocala Breeders' Sales Co.'s spring sale, and trainer Bob Baffert. That included consecutive Grade 1 wins in the American Pharoah Stakes and Breeders' Cup Juvenile to secure his divisional title.

Corniche was transferred from the embattled Baffert to trainer Todd Pletcher earlier this year. He made his only start for that barn in the Grade 2 Amsterdam Stakes on July 31 at Saratoga. The colt stumbled at the start and briefly raced in third before fading to last of nine as the favorite. Pletcher said after the race that the colt had shed a frog - a cushioned part of the sole of the hoof that acts as a shock absorber - on his right front foot during the race. A release issued Sunday said that the colt emerged from the Amsterdam with a career-ending injury to a hind joint.

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“It’s unfortunate that Corniche has been forced to retire at this point in his career, but he will be revered for his remarkable juvenile season,” Ashford manager Dermot Ryan said in the release. “He’s a most impressive-looking individual, and I can see him proving extremely popular amongst breeders.”

Quality Road's sons at stud include the exciting freshman City of Light, standing alongside him at Lane's End. Corniche is out of six-time graded stakes winner Wasted Tears, who is also the dam of stakes-placed Coffee Crush.

Corniche will become the seventh 2-year-old champion from the last 15 winners of the award to begin his stud career at Ashford, which has placed a premium on that precocity. The farm currently stands Eclipse champion juveniles Lookin At Lucky (2009), Uncle Mo (2010), American Pharoah (2014), and Classic Empire (2016). The farm also launched the stud careers of divisional champions Hansen (2011) and Shangahi Bobby (2012) before they moved to other jurisdictions.