Grade 2 winner McCraken retired, to stand at Airdrie Stud

Multiple graded stakes winner McCraken has been retired and will stand for $10,000 at Airdrie Stud in 2019.

McCraken, a 4-year-old son of Ghostzapper who raced as a homebred for Janis Whitham and was trained by Ian Wilkes, compiled a career mark of 14-6-1-3 with earnings of $869,728.

McCraken won all three of his starts as a juvenile, including the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes and Street Sense Stakes at Churchill Downs. He added the Grade 3 Sam F. Davis Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs and the Matt Winn Stakes at Churchill as a 3-year-old, and finished second or third in four graded stakes. A Grade 1 victory eluded him, with his closest finish being a nose defeat by Girvin in the Haskell Invitational.

Airdrie’s Bret Jones noted in a release that McCraken is the only son of Ghostzapper to have won a graded stakes at 2.

"His record of six wins in seven starts at a mile and a sixteenth or less also demonstrates that he’s got the miler speed and turn of foot that has been the signature of so many leading sires," he said.

McCraken is out of the graded stakes-placed Seeking the Gold mare Ivory Empress, a half sister to Grade 1 winner Mea Domina. Ivory Empress also produced graded stakes-placed Bondurant.

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