Grade 3 winner Rated R Superstar retired
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GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – The popular multiple graded stakes winner Rated R Superstar has been retired from racing and is scheduled to ship next week to Old Friends, owner Danny Caldwell said Friday.
Old Friends is a Thoroughbred retirement facility in Georgetown, Ky. Rated R Superstar won 13 of 70 starts for earnings of $1.8 million. The 10-year-old gelding has been galloping at Lone Star Park.
Caldwell said his wife, Allison, has been working on the retirement plans with Old Friends the last few days and the couple announced the decision Friday.
“They’re excited to have him and that made me feel really good,” Danny Caldwell said. “All I’ve heard is that they do nothing but great things with the horses. They love the horses.”
Danny Caldwell said Rated R Superstar was going to be retired at the end of this year, but plans changed when he learned the horse would be unable to race on the diuretic Lasix in stakes due to new Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Authority regulations in place for the upcoming meet at Remington Park.
“We were shooting for the Governor’s Cup on Aug. 18,” Danny Caldwell said of the race Rated R Superstar has won the last two years at Remington. “That was the plan.
“These horses that have been on Lasix [a long time], I just don’t want to take them off of it. They can bleed anytime with Lasix, but I wasn’t going to take the chance running him without Lasix since he’s been on it for eight years.
“I wanted to give him the opportunity to win that race a third time. He loves Remington Park and has had a lot of success there. I wouldn’t be running him in anything there that’s not a stakes, so there’s no reason to keep him in training.”
Remington is the hometrack for Oklahoma resident Caldwell. Last year, Rated R Superstar won both of the meet’s major dirt races for older horses, the Governor’s Cup and the Jeffrey A. Hawk Memorial.
Rated R Superstar, who last raced in May and was fifth in an allowance at Oaklawn, won a total of eight stakes during his career. He had three graded victories, including the Grade 3, $500,000 Essex as a 9-year-old in 2022 at Oaklawn. Caldwell claimed Rated R Superstar for $50,000 in January 2021.
“He’s just been a blessing,” Danny Caldwell said. “He’s a true warrior. I wish I had a barnful just like him.”
Federico Villafranco trained Rated R Superstar for Caldwell. He currently has the son of Kodiak Kowboy at Lone Star.
“We’ll let him go to Old Friends and make some buddies and be a horse,” said Danny Caldwell.
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