Maram, winner of first Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, retired

Maram, who was to have made her 2011 debut as the likely favorite in Saturday’s Beaugay Stakes at Belmont, has retired after a veterinary exam revealed a small tear in her suspensory ligament.

A 5-year-old Sahm mare, Maram last ran in August, when she finished seventh in the Ballston Spa Handicap, won by Dynaslew.

Maram, winner of the inaugural Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf in 2008, was a homebred for Karen Woods and the late Saud bin Khaled. A $9,500 weanling buy-back at Keeneland’s November 2006 breeding stock sale, Maram went on to earn $900,320 with wins in half of her 10 starts with trainer Chad Brown. Four of those victories came in stakes. In addition to taking the Juvenile Fillies Turf, she also won the Grade 3 Miss Grillo Stakes at Belmont in 2008, the 2010 Miss Liberty Stakes at Monmouth, and the 2009 John Hettinger Stakes at Saratoga. She also placed in the Grade 3 Eatontown Hadicap last year and the Pebbles Stakes in 2009.

“Maram has more than proved her worth as a race filly and certainly identified herself as a future keystone broodmare in my breeding program,” Woods said.

Woods and Ron Wallace, president of the late Khaled’s Chanteclair Farm, have not yet determined Maram’s breeding plans.

Maram is out of American Dreamer, a winner by Quest for Fame. That 13-year-old mare also is the dam of 3-year-old filly American Lights, a Ten Centuries filly that Brown trains for Woods. American Lights is expected to debut in New York in two or three weeks, Wood said.