Kruljac retires from training; will continue as an owner

ARCADIA, Calif. – Eric Kruljac, whose stable included the California star sprinter The Chosen Vron in recent years, has retired from training.

Kruljac, 72, said last weekend that he plans to continue his involvement in the sport as an owner and breeder, and recently transferred his small stable to his son, Ian, 36.

Eric Kruljac had his last runner at Santa Anita when Uffda finished fourth in a $20,000 claimer at Santa Anita on March 15. Three of his former runners started for Ian Kruljac at Santa Anita last weekend.

“It’s time,” Eric Kruljac said in a recent interview. “I turned my license in. I’ll just be an owner.”

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Kruljac said he wants to focus on his group of four broodmares and a small number of horses he owns, and move away from training, notably clerical billings.

“I still love the game,” Kruljac said. “I hated doing the monthly bills.”

Kruljac won 1,252 races from 7,656 starters in a career that began in 1986. He won a career-best 98 races in 2014. The stable earned $1,865,429 in 2015, a career-best.

The Chosen Vron, a two-time Grade 1 winner and California’s Horse of the Year in 2023 and 2024, was retired in March. A gelding, The Chosen Vron won 19 of 24 starts and earned $1,709,678 for a partnership that included Kruljac. The Chosen Vron ran from late 2020 to last August and won 18 stakes.

The Chosen Vron, now 7, won the Grade 1 Bing Crosby Stakes at Del Mar in 2023 and 2024, which Kruljac said earlier this year was the highlight of the gelding’s career.

“He’s a good horse to end on,” Kruljac said.

Aside from The Chosen Vron, Kruljac trained such runners as Leave Me Alone, who won the Grade 1 Test Stakes at Saratoga in 2005; Kiss Today Goodbye, who won the Grade 2 San Antonio Stakes at Santa Anita in 2020; and La Nez, a California-bred filly who won four stakes for statebreds from 2009 to 2011.

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