Dollar Bill dies in hospital

Dollar Bill, a Grade 2 winner and millionaire who had been expected to stand in 2005 at Signature Stallions in Florida, died Tuesday after foundering.

A 6-year-old son of Peaks and Valleys, Dollar Bill had been at the Rood and Riddle equine hospital in Lexington, Ky., since October, when he underwent surgery to fuse his right ankle joint. The ankle was arthritic. According to Ben Glass, racing manager for Dollar Bill's owners, Gary and Mary West, the horse began to show signs of foundering in his right front foot on Sunday morning.

"We thought he had made it," Glass said. "But then his right foot started to go bad, and once it became apparent that he was starting to show signs of discomfort, we had no alternative."

Trained initially by Dallas Stewart and then by Bobby Frankel at age 4, Dollar Bill won the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes and the 2001 Risen Star Stakes. Though he never won a Grade 1, he finished second or third in five of them. He retired with a lifetime record of 22-4-5-5 and $1,225,546 in earnings.

Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Courtney bred Dollar Bill in Kentucky from their Saratoga Six mare Saratoga Dame.