Multiple graded stakes winner Vyjack retired

Multiple graded stakes-winning millionaire Vyjack has been retired from racing and has returned to breeders Craig and Carrie Brogden at Machmer Hall in Paris, Ky. – at least, for now. Carrie Brogden says the gelding could be re-homed for a second career following some time off.

Vyjack, by Into Mischief, is out of the Stravinsky mare Life Happened, making him a half-brother to champion Tepin. He was offered by the Brogdens, via Select Sales, at the 2011 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July yearling sale and sold for $45,000 to Pike Racing. The latter outfit then pinhooked him for $100,000 at the following spring’s Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-year-olds in training sale to David Wilkenfeld’s Pick Six Racing.

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Racing for Wilkenfeld, Vyjack put together a career mark of 8-7-3 from 31 starts with earnings of $1,427,600. After winning the Grade 2 Jerome Stakes, Grade 2 Kelso Stakes, and Grade 3 Gotham Stakes, all on dirt in New York, Vyjack spent the later part of his career on the opposite coast and showed his versatility with a victory in the Grade 2 City of Hope Mile, establishing a course record of 1:31.69 on the Santa Anita turf. He also was multiple Grade 1-placed and was a familiar face on the 2013 Triple Crown trail, finishing 18th in the Kentucky Derby and eighth in the Belmont Stakes.

Vyjack last raced when second by a head in the Grade 2 Del Mar Mile in August. Craig Brogden credited Wilkenfeld for sending the 8-year-old gelding to Kentucky in “great shape” and shared photos on his Twitter account of Vyjack enjoying time in the paddock with another Machmer Hall-bred graded stakes winner, Vinceremos. The latter returned to his birthplace earlier this year after a career in which he won the Grade 3 Sam F. Davis Stakes and finished 14th in the 2014 Kentucky Derby.