Fast Bullet retired, to stand at Pauls Mill

Grade 2 winner Fast Bullet has been retired from racing and will stand the 2014 breeding season at Ben Walden Jr.’s Pauls Mill in Versailles, Ky., for an advertised fee of $7,500.

The 5-year-old son of Speightstown finishes his career with four wins in seven career starts for earnings of $330,334, highlighted by a victory in the Grade 2 True North Handicap in 2013. He was campaigned by Zayat Stables, and trained for the majority of his career for Bob Baffert before finishing his career in the barn of D. Wayne Lukas.

“He was so fast and so talented,” Walden said of Fast Bullet. “He’s a prototype of his sire. I love [Bob] Baffert’s quote, he said, ‘God doesn’t make horses this fast very often,’ and he should know. His physicality is his biggest attribute, and that’s saying a lot because he’s so talented and because he’s by such a nice horse.”

Bred in Kentucky by Roy Gottlieb, Fast Bullet is out of the winning Dayjur mare Renfro Valley Star, whose six winners from eight foals to race also include Grade 3-placed winner Blairs Roarin Star. His second dam is champion Brave Raj, and his extended family includes Grade/Group 2 winners Eurosilver, Muntej and Baqah.

Fast Bullet will join first-year stallion I Want Revenge on the recently revitalized Pauls Mill stallion roster.

Walden said that Fast Bullet will be syndicated for 40 shares, with owner Ahmed Zayat retaining 10 to 15 shares. The owner of Pauls Mill said that limiting the number of shares harkens back to an older-school philosophy of stallion syndication and offers a more personal partnership.

“Everybody thinks things that are old are outdated and not as good, but that’s not always true,” Walden said. “There’s a lot of wisdom in the Claiborne approach and my father’s approach of having a 36- or 40-share syndicate instead of 50 or 55. Your ownership is tighter, you have a little more control over the mares, the share values are on more solid ground than having the ownership divided more.

“The investors appreciate the smaller syndicates, so we went at a 40-share syndicate instead of the traditional 50,” he continued. “We did the same thing with I Want Revenge and he sold out.”