Outwork, Speightster retired to stand at WinStar Farm

Grade 1 winner Outwork and Grade 3 winner Speightster have both been retired and will begin their stud careers next year at WinStar Farm, joining the farm’s expanding stallion roster.

Outwork, the first Grade 1-winning son of breakout young sire Uncle Mo to retire, raced as a homebred for Mike Repole. Speightster, who raced as a WinStar homebred, is by the farm’s successful sire Speightstown. Fees for both newcomers will be announced at a later date.

“Outwork and Speightster are as close to Uncle Mo and Speightstown as you will find when you look at the combination of their overall quality, physical traits, and racing traits in relation to their sires,” WinStar president and CEO Elliott Walden said. “Speightstown is emerging as a sire of sires, and Speightster is closely related to Smart Strike and bred just like him. Most would expect Uncle Mo to have successful sons at stud, and Outwork looks like a carbon copy. So these are two very exciting new stallion prospects that will have the full support of some of the top breeders in the world, including WinStar and our partners Mike Repole and Woodford Thoroughbreds on Outwork. Both horses also figure to be priced in the market to be accessible for a wide range of breeders.”

Outwork won 3 of 5 career starts; his only unplaced effort came when 14th in the Kentucky Derby in his career finale. The colt was Uncle Mo’s first winner when scoring at 4 1/2 furlongs in April 2015 at Keeneland; his biggest victory came in the Grade 1 Wood Memorial at 1 1/8 miles.

“Outwork has always reminded me so much of Uncle Mo,” said Todd Pletcher, who trained both horses. “Both are big colts with similar qualities, including their uncanny speed and precociousness for their size. Both were always very forward in the mornings and among the best work horses in the barn, and obviously they both went on to do great things stretching out their speed to win major Grade 1 races.”

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Outwork is out of the Grade 1-placed Empire Maker mare Nonna Mia, a half-sister to Grade 2 winner and young stallion Cairo Prince.

Speightster won his first three career starts in 2015 by a combined 13 lengths, capped by a 2 1/2 length score in the Grade 3 Dwyer Stakes over Texas Red. He returned from a 10-month layoff to finish eighth in the Grade 2 Churchill Downs Stakes this May in his only other outing.

Speightster is out of the Danzig mare Dance Swiftly, a full sister to champion and multiple stakes producer Dance Smartly and a half-sister to Grade 1 winner and perennial leading sire Smart Strike.

The addition of Outwork and Speightster to the stallion barn brings the number of active stallions at WinStar up to 22, with the roster led by Triple Crown sire Pioneerof the Nile and perennial standouts Distorted Humor, Speightstown, and Tiznow. The farm holds interests in two other major 3-year-olds of 2016, as it campaigns Belmont Stakes winner Creator and holds the stallion rights to Preakness Stakes winner Exaggerator. Future plans for those colts have not been announced yet.