Prayer for Relief retired, will go to stud in Florida

Multiple graded stakes-winning multimillionaire Prayer for Relief has been retired and will enter stud at Pleasant Acres Stallions in Morriston, Fla., for the 2017 season, already in progress. A stud fee has yet to be announced.

The 9-year-old Zayat Stables colorbearer retires with a record of 46-8-6-10 and earnings of $2,277,948. He last raced Jan. 28, when he finished 10th in the inaugural $12 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park.

"Very excited for the big horse, and looking forward to his babies!" Justin Zayat, racing and stallion manager for the Zayat family's operation, wrote on Twitter. “A well-deserved retirement. Retired sound and happy."

Prayer for Relief swept the Grade 3 Iowa Derby, Grade 2 West Virginia Derby, and Grade 2 Super Derby as a 3-year-old in 2011. He continued on as an older horse to win the Grade 3 Cornhusker Handicap and a pair of listed stakes. He also placed in 15 other stakes events, including a third in the Grade 1 Woodward Stakes in 2014.

A son of leading Pennsylvania sire Jump Start, Prayer for Relief is a half-brother to stakes winner Twin Sparks, and is from the extended family of Grade 1 winner Another Reef. Bred in Kentucky by G. R. Aschinger, the horse was an $80,000 Keeneland September yearling sale purchase by the Zayats.