European champion Azamour dies at age 13

Azamour, Europe’s champion older horse of 2005, was euthanized on Saturday after sustaining a major injury at the Aga Khan’s Gilltown Stud in County Kildare, Ireland, Racing Post reports.

The 13-year-old son of Nightshift was in the midst of his ninth season at Gilltown Stud, where he stood for an advertised fee of about $10,993 in U.S. dollars (8,000 Euros).

Azamour, an Aga Khan homebred, primarily raced in England and Ireland, winning six of 12 starts for earnings of $2,665,162. He won a trio of Group 1 races in England – the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes, Prince of Wales’s Stakes, and St. James Palace Stakes – as well as the Group 1 Baileys Irish Champion Stakes and Group 2 Juddmonte Beresford Stakes in Ireland.

Azamour shipped to the U.S. for his final start, finishing third to Shirocco in the 2005 Breeders’ Cup Turf at Belmont Park. John Oxx conditioned the horse throughout his racing career.

At stud, Azamour’s seven crops of racing age are highlighted by132 winners who have bankrolled $10.7 million in progeny earnings. His runners are led by Group 1 winner Valyra, Group 2 winners Shankardeh, and Wade Giles, Group 3 winners Colombian No Explaining, Puncher Clynch, and Native Khan, and successful steeplechase horse Zarkandar.

Azamour shuttled to the Southern Hemisphere for the first time last year, standing at Brighthill Stud in New Zealand. Racing Post reports that his book of mares included Triassic, the dam of global Group 1 winner So You Think.