Goldikova, three-time Breeders' Cup Mile winner, dies at 16
Hall of Fame racemare Goldikova, the first horse ever to win the same Breeders’ Cup race three times, has died in France. The Irish-born daughter of Anabaa was 16.
Goldikova raced as a homebred for Alain and Gerard Wertheimer and was trained by Freddy Head. She raced for five seasons and put together a record of 27-17-6-3, including 14 Grade 1/Group 1 victories, for earnings of $7,176,551. She was honored as the 2010 Cartier Award European Horse of the Year, and earned both the Eclipse Award for outstanding female turf horse and Cartier Award for champion older horse in both 2009 and 2010. Her three victories in the Breeders’ Cup Mile helped earn her election to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2017.
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Goldikova made her first trip to the United States in 2008, winning the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Santa Anita by 1 1/4 lengths over defending winner Kip Deville. She returned to Santa Anita in 2009, edging Courageous Cat by a half-length for a repeat in the Mile.
Goldikova scored her unprecedented third consecutive victory in the Mile in 2010 at Churchill Downs, leading home multiple Eclipse Award champion Gio Ponti by 1 3/4 lengths. She returned for another tilt at the Breeders’ Cup in 2011 and, in her final start, finished third behind winner Court Vision, whom she had defeated in the two prior editions of the Mile.
Goldikova’s other major victories included the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes at the Royal Ascot meeting in 2010, and four consecutive editions of the Group 1 Prix Rothschild in France from 2008 to 2011. In France, where she was based at Chantilly for Head, she won two editions of the Group 1 Prix d’Ispahan, along with top-level victories in the Prix de la Foret, Prix du Moulin de Longchamp, and the Prix Jacques Le Marois. Her other Group 1 victory came in the Falmouth Stakes in England.
Goldikova is the dam of two winners from four starters, led by the Group 3 winner Terrakova. That Galileo filly also was Group 1-placed. The mare’s final two foals are the unraced 3-year-old Dubawi filly Goldistyle, and the unraced 2-year-old Galileo colt Lehman.
Goldikova was not in foal at the time of her death.