Grade 2 winner Diamond Stripes euthanized

Diamond Stripes, a multiple Grade 2 winner, was euthanized Monday at Old Friends Equine Retirement in Georgetown, Ky., due to complications of treatment from progressive ethmoidal hematoma, a benign but locally invasive sinus cancer.

The 10-year-old gelded son of Notebook had resided at Old Friends since his retirement from the racetrack in December 2011.

"We were so happy to have been able to provide Diamond Stripes with a worthy retirement these last years," said Old Friends founder and president Michael Blowen. "He was a kind horse with a strong spirit and he will be missed by many of his friends and fans."

Bred in Florida by Sam and Carolyn Rogers, Diamond Stripes sold as a weanling for $95,000, then brought $340,000 at the 2004 Keeneland September yearling sale. He ended up in the barn of Rick Dutrow for owner Four Roses Thoroughbreds.

Unraced at 2, Diamond Stripes debuted in July of his sophomore campaign and won his first four starts, highlighted by the Grade 3 Pegasus Stakes at the Meadowlands. He went winless in his next three starts, all in Grade 1 competition – the Stephen Foster Handicap, Whitney Handicap and Woodward Stakes. He finished up his 4-year-old season with a win in the Grade 2 Meadowlands Cup Handicap, an eighth in the 2007 Breeders’ Cup Classic, and a third in the Grade 2 Clark Handicap.

After a prep race at Santa Anita, Diamond Stripes was sent to Dubai at age 5, where he prevailed in the Group 2 Godolphin Mile. The gelding was never the same after the international start, needing a two-year layoff to return to the races. He raced once more for Four Roses and Dutrow, a fourth-place effort in a Gulfstream optional claimer, before being sold privately to Southwest-based owner Doyle Williams.

Diamond Stripes finished last in his debut for his new connections at Remington Park, then was entered for a $15,000 claiming tag in his second start. He finished seventh by 20 3/4 lengths and was claimed by trainer Chris Hartman for James Rogers’s Black Hawk Stable. The gelding raced once more, at Sunland Park for a $5,000 tag, and finished last by 28 1/4lengths.

Diamond Stripes finished his career with 6 wins in 16 starts for earnings of $1,478,014.

Blowen was made aware of Diamond Stripes’s circumstances, and contacted Hartman to discuss retiring the horse to Old Friends. The trainer put Blowen in touch with the gelding’s ownership, which donated the horse and sponsored his trip from New Mexico to Kentucky.