Fraise dies; won BC Turf

Fraise, winner of the 1992 Breeders' Cup Turf, who returned from stud duty in Japan in August to be pensioned in Kentucky, has died at age 17.

A son of Strawberry Road, Fraise died on Nov. 6 of a ruptured blood vessel in his abdomen. He had resided at the Old Friends equine retirement home in Midway, Ky., since Aug 16.

The president of Old Friends, Michael Blowen, said Fraise will be cremated and interred at Old Friends in the farm's horse cemetery, where Estrapade, the female turf champion in 1986, also is buried.

"Fraise visited with several tour groups on Saturday and seemed to be fine," Blowen said in a statement issued Tuesday. "But farm manager Tim Overton called on Sunday morning at 8:15 to report Fraise's death."

Bred by the late Allen Paulson and campaigned by Paulson's wife, Madeleine, Fraise was best known for his dramatic victory by a nose over Sky Classic in the 1992 Breeders' Cup Turf. He also won the Grade 1 Hollywood Turf Cup and Sword Dancer Handicap and won or placed in a dozen other graded stakes.

Trained first by Richard Lundy and then by Bill Mott, Fraise won 10 of 34 lifetime starts and had $2,613,105 in winnings.

Fraise was a son of the French mare Zalataia (by Dictus), a Grade 1 winner. Madeleine Paulson donated $65,000 to Old Friends to bring Fraise and Ogygian, another Old Friends resident, back to Kentucky for pensioning.