Early Voting retired from racing, will stand at Coolmore's Ashford Stud

Early Voting, winner of this year's Preakness Stakes, has been retired and will stand at Coolmore's Ashford Stud in Kentucky for 2023.

With Early Voting’s retirement, two of this year’s three American classic winners are now retired, as Belmont Stakes winner Mo Donegal has taken up residence at Spendthrift Farm. Kentucky Derby winner Rich Strike remains in training.

Early Voting, a son of the white-hot young stallion Gun Runner, won the Grade 3 Withers Stakes this year in his second career start, then was a strong second to Mo Donegal in the Grade 2 Wood Memorial. Owner Klaravich Stables and trainer Chad Brown bypassed the Kentucky Derby, which the colt had earned enough points to race in, to focus on the Preakness Stakes with the lightly raced colt. The result was a 1 1/4-length victory over Epicenter.

Early Voting was fourth in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy and eighth while eased in the Grade 1 Travers Stakes at Saratoga in his final outings.

In addition to being by Gun Runner – also the sire of champion Echo Zulu and Grade 1 winners Cyberknife, Gunite, Society, and Taiba from his first crop – Early Voting has a solid stallion's pedigree on the bottom side of his page. He is out of the unraced Tiznow mare Amour d'Ete, who, in addition to being a full sister to multiple graded stakes winner Irap, is a half-sister to champion and perennially successful sire Speightstown.

“We’re delighted to be standing classic winner Early Voting,” Ashford’s Dermot Ryan said in a press release. “He’s a very good-looking son of a remarkable sire in Gun Runner – with an incredible six Grade 1 winners from his first crop – and he’s out of a half-sister to the sire of our own Munnings.”

Early Voting was bred by Three Chimneys Farm, which stands Gun Runner in Kentucky. He was a $200,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase by bloodstock agent Mike Ryan.

“Early Voting was an outstanding physical specimen as a yearling,” Ryan said in the release. “He had size, strength, scope, substance, and tremendous quality. It is very easy to be impressed by him, he has all the credentials to become a successful stallion and I am very confident that breeders will love him.”

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