Derby winner Super Saver retired

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver, the WinStar Farm homebred that gave trainer Todd Pletcher his first Kentucky Derby victory, has been retired to WinStar in Versailles, Ky, the farm announced Thursday.

The 3-year-old Maria’s Mon colt does not have a stud fee yet.

Tests last month at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital showed that Super Saver had bruised cannon bones which would have sidelined him.

In announcing the colt’s retirement Thursday, WinStar racing manager Elliott Walden said that the horse’s injury “should subside with time.” But, he noted, “It created a risk that he would not return to the form he showed as a 2-year-old and through the Kentucky Derby. He was a top 2-year-old and became WinStar’s and Todd Pletcher’s first Kentucky Derby winner. We felt like he had nothing more to prove.”

Super Saver also was the first Kentucky Derby winner campaigned by WinStar owners Bill Casner and Ken Troutt. WinStar had bred 2003 Derby and Preakness winner Funny Cide but sold him as a yearling.

PHOTOS: Barbara Livingston remembers Super Saver

Earlier this month, Troutt and Casner dissolved their partnership in WinStar, with Casner and his wife, Susan, now a major boarder at the Troutt-owned farm.

WinStar went into the 2010 Derby with four contenders: Rule, Endorsement, American Lion, and Super Saver. The list dwindled after Rule’s poor training prompted WinStar to scratch him and Endorsement sustained an injury the week of the race. Under Calvin Borel, Super Saver went off the 8-1 second choice and won by 2 1/2 lengths over Ice Box. American Lion finished 11th. WinStar later also won the Belmont Stakes with Drosselmeyer.

“I’ve dreamt of winning the Kentucky Derby since I was 6 years old,” Pletcher said. “Super Saver was my fastest 2-year-old last year, and his stakes-record performance in the Kentucky Jockey Club told me he was a Derby horse. I just had to harness that speed and get him ready. Thank God it happened just that way.”

WinStar bred Super Saver from the A. P. Indy mare Supercharger, a $160,000 purchase at the 2006 Keeneland November sale. Bred by Ogden Mills Phipps, she was carrying Super Saver at the time. Super saver is her first stakes winner.

At 2, Super Saver won the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes by five lengths. At 3, en route to his Derby triumph, he finished second behind Line of David in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby and was third in Odysseus’s Grade 3 Tampa Bay Derby. He retires with $1,889,766 in earnings from 3 wins in 10 starts; he has two second-place finishes and one third to his credit as well.

WinStar will host a welcome party for Super Saver at WinStar on Oct. 30 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Pletcher will be in attendance, and the Kentucky Derby trophy will be on display.