Forty Niner, champion and influential sire, dead at 35

Eclipse Award champion and classic sire Forty Niner died in Japan on May 18 due to the infirmities of age. The pensioned son of the great Mr. Prospector had just turned 35 on May 11, living to a grand old age for a Thoroughbred.

Forty Niner raced as a homebred for Claiborne Farm and was trained by Woody Stephens. He won five of six starts as a juvenile in 1987 to earn his championship, including the Grade 1 Futurity and Grade 1 Champagne Stakes, both at Belmont, along with the Grade 2 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland and Grade 2 Sanford at Saratoga. The following winter and spring, he continued to be one of the standouts of his generation. After finishing second in the Grade 3 Hutcheson Stakes, he won the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth and was second by a neck in the Grade 1 Florida Derby. In his final preps for the Triple Crown, he won the Lafayette Stakes at Keeneland, then was second by a head to eventual dual classic winner Risen Star in the Grade 2 Lexington.

Forty Niner was second by a neck in the Kentucky Derby to Winning Colors, then was seventh after dueling for the early lead with the Derby winner in the Preakness Stakes. Given a brief freshening, he won an allowance race at Monmouth before pulling a Grade 1 double in the major summer events for 3-year-olds, the Haskell Invitational and Travers Stakes, defeating Seeking the Gold both times in memorable photo finishes. After finishing second by a neck to champion Alysheba in the Grade 1 Woodward, Forty Niner won the inaugural NYRA Mile (now the Cigar Mile) before concluding his career with a fourth-place finish behind Alysheba, Seeking the Gold, and Waquoit in the Breeders’ Cup Classic on a muddy Churchill Downs track.

Forty Niner returned to Claiborne to begin his stud career in 1989, and remained there through the 1995 season before being sold to continue his career at Shizunai Stallion Station. He was pensioned in 2007. Overall, he sired 57 stakes winners, including 33 graded/group stakes winners, worldwide. The most influential of his foals has been Distorted Humor, a four-time graded stakes winner who went on to sire Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner and Eclipse champion Funny Cide, Belmont Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Drosselmeyer, Grade 1 winner and classic sire Flower Alley, and 16 other Grade/Group 1 winners. Still active at WinStar Farm in Kentucky, Distorted Humor is a perennial leading sire and has also developed into a leading broodmare sire, with his daughters producing champion and leading money winner Arrogate, multiple Grade 1 winner and white-hot young sire Constitution, and multiple Grade 1 winners Elate, New Money Honey, and Practical Joke.

Forty Niner also sired 1996 Belmont Stakes winner Editor’s Note, who later that season added another Grade 1 triumph in the Super Derby, and eight-time graded stakes winner Coronado’s Quest, who emulated his sire’s Haskell-Travers double in 1998. Forty Niner’s other top-level runners included Grade 1 winners Ecton Park, Gold Fever, Marley Vale, and Nine Keys, and Japanese Group 1 winners Admire Hope, Meiner Select, and Utopia.