Riposte done for the year

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Riposte, the Juddmonte Farms-owned, Bill Mott-trained mare who has won two graded stakes this year on the turf, will not race again this year, and her racing future will be decided at a later date.

Riposte, winner of the Sheepshead Bay and New York Stakes – both Grade 2 stakes at Belmont this spring – has been turned out at Juddmonte Farms in Kentucky, according to Garrett O’Rourke, the operation’s U.S.-based racing manager.

“We brought her home. There was nothing major. Everything checked out. Bill just felt like she wasn’t firing on all cylinders,” O’Rourke said. “She looks magnificent and is in super form, but if you’re going to run in Grade 1 races, you have to be absolutely firing on all cylinders.”

O’Rourke noted Riposte is a half-sister to Kind, the dam of the great Frankel. O’Rourke said Riposte is extremely valuable as a broodmare already but could enhance that value if she could become a Grade 1 winner. The issue, O’Rourke said, is the Grade 1 races Riposte would best fit aren’t run until the summer and fall.

O’Rourke said Prince Khalid Abdullah, who heads the Juddmonte operation, would make that final decision.