Oscar Performance to stand at Mill Ridge upon retirement

Multiple Grade 1 winner Oscar Performance will retire to his birthplace, Mill Ridge Farm in Lexington, Ky., at the end of this racing season to begin his stud career in 2019.

Oscar Performance, by leading turf sire Kitten's Joy, races as a homebred for John and Jerry Amerman. He is out of their stakes-winning homebred Devine Actress, a Theatrical mare who resides at Mill Ridge.

“We at Mill Ridge are so appreciative to Jerry and John Amerman for the opportunity to stand a stallion with the potential to contribute to the breed like Oscar Performance,” Mill Ridge managing partner Headley Bell said in a release. “Since [former Mill Ridge stallions] Diesis and Gone West, we have been waiting for the special horse to carry on from their legacies and believe Oscar Performance has all the qualities to do so.”

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Oscar Performance has won five graded stakes events to date, highlighted by a trio of Grade 1 victories – the 2016 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf and last year's Belmont Derby and Secretariat Stakes. In his 2018 debut, he won the Grade 3 Poker Stakes on June 17 at Belmont, sizzling the mile on turf in a course-record 1:31.23. Not only did that break Elusive Quality's course mark of 1:31.63 established in 1998, it tied the world record for a mile on the turf established by Mandurah in 2010 at Monmouth Park.

Mill Ridge previously stood stallions such as the great Gone West, but had just a one-horse roster in 2018. Oscar Performance will join regally-bred Grade 3 winner Keep Up in the stallion barn next year.