Rebel's Romance retired
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Two-time Breeders’ Cup Turf winner Rebel’s Romance has been retired, the horse’s owner and breeder, Godolphin, announced Friday.
A story posted on Godolphin’s website called 8-year-old Rebel’s Romance the most successful horse Godolphin has campaigned. Through seven seasons of competition, Rebel’s Romance won a remarkable 23 times from 33 starts and banked more than $17 million, according to Daily Racing Form records. He won the Breeders’ Cup Turf in 2022 at Keeneland and won it again in 2024 at Del Mar before coming up 1 1/4 lengths short of a third BC Turf victory when second in the 2025 renewal.
Rebel’s Romance, a gelding, is by Dubawi out of Minidress, by Street Cry, and was trained throughout his career by Charlie Appleby.
The retirement comes as a surprise. Rebel’s Romance on July 9 at Newmarket won the Group 2 Princess of Wales's Stakes. Four days later, a story posted on the Godolphin website referenced “potential trips to Canada and the United States” and “another crack at the Breeders’ Cup.”
Rebel’s Romance, whatever the case, goes out owing nothing to anyone.
Gelded before he ever ran, his career began in October 2020 with two wins over the all-weather track at Kempton Park and a winter dirt campaign in Dubai, culminating in a blowout UAE Derby victory. Connections eschewed a Kentucky Derby run and shipped Rebel’s Romance to New York for a start in the Belmont Stakes, but days before the race, Rebel’s Romance was withdrawn with what Godolphin termed a leg infection.
Rebel’s Romance didn’t start between the UAE Derby in March 2021 and a humdrum dirt handicap in January 2022 at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai. He lost his comeback by more than 24 lengths and another race in February by an even wider margin, and never raced on dirt again.
Switched to turf, Rebel’s Romance became a monster. He went 4 for 4 in European grass races during the summer of 2022, capturing two German Group 1s before his two-length Breeders’ Cup win. But 2023 turned into a lost season for Rebel’s Romance. After a flat seventh in the Sheema Classic on the Dubai World Cup undercard in March, Rebel's Romance showed up at Saratoga in July for the Bowling Green Stakes, where he clipped heels and fell.
He ran again in New York 10 weeks later and finished a tepid fourth as the 1-2 favorite in the Turf Classic, and it looked like Rebel’s Romance’s best days might already be behind him. Instead, he put together his best season as a 6-year-old in 2024.
Rebel’s Romance won the $6 million Sheema Classic that year by two lengths, and two months later made the difficult trip to Hong Kong and landed the Group 1 Champions and Chater Cup by the same margin. Back at Appleby’s yard in England, he was third in Europe’s most important 1 1/2-mile summer race, the King George, won his second Group 1 Preis Von Europa, and then held on by a neck for his second Breeders’ Cup Turf.
A half-step slower in 2025, 7-year-old Rebel’s Romance remained a force, scoring in a pair of English Group 2s before another third in the King George, a second win in the Group 1 Grosser Preis von Berlin, and a cantering victory at Aqueduct in the Grade 1 Turf Classic. He ran his race in the BC Turf and briefly loomed a winner before longshot Ethical Diamond tagged him in the final half-furlong.
Rebel’s Romance went out the right way, with two straight wins, his last in England, where Rebel’s Romance, a towering mountain of a horse, never could quite hit his very best mark. Rebel’s Romance preferred flat oval tracks to the undulating irregularities of typical European courses.
Bred in Ireland, based in England and Dubai, he raced in seven countries on three continents. Rebel's Romance was the American champion turf horse in 2024, and on Friday, he was retired from racing.
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