Jack Christopher retired; will stand for $45K at Coolmore's Ashford Stud

Multiple Grade 1 winner Jack Christopher has officially been retired after missing last week’s Breeders’ Cup, and will enter stand in 2023 at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky.

Jack Christopher, campaigned by Jim Bakke, Gerald Isbister, and Coolmore, which bought in during the colt’s juvenile season, will debut for an advertised fee of $45,000. The flashy colt will stand alongside his sire, Munnings, who he closely resembles. Munnings has been a consistently successful sire the last several years, and has seen his fee climb from $20,000 in 2019 to $100,000 for 2023.

“We are delighted to have Jack Christopher now here at Ashford standing alongside his sire Munnings,” Coolmore’s Dermot Ryan said in a release. “He’s a striking horse with great presence and a lovely temperament. Horses like him are what makes racing exciting to watch.”

Jack Christopher won both his starts as a 2-year-old, including the Grade 1 Champagne Stakes. He was forced to scratch from the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, for which he was the morning-line favorite, with a physical issue, and later had surgery on his left shin.

Jack Christopher resurfaced this year to win three of four starts, remaining unbeaten around one turn with a victory in the Grade 2 Pat Day Mile at Churchill Downs and Grade 1 scores in New York in the Woody Stephens and H. Allen Jerkens Memorial. His only career loss came with a creditable third in a try around two turns in the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational. He was beaten two lengths by multiple Grade 1 winners Cyberknife and Taiba.

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Jack Christopher was expected to be one of the favorites for the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Keeneland, but was not entered for the race, as his connections expressed concerns that he would be scratched before race day by Kentucky Horse Racing Commission veterinarians based on his way of moving.

Jack Christopher, out of a half-sister to multiple Grade 1 winner and successful sire Street Boss, will be part of a quartet of new stallions for Ashford in 2023. The farm is also debuting two-time Breeders’ Cup winner Golden Pal, who will stand alongside his sire, Uncle Mo; Preakness Stakes winner Early Voting; and 2021 Eclipse Award champion juvenile Corniche.

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