Santa Anita: Test Stakes winner Sweet Lulu retired

ARCADIA, Calif. – The short, successful racing career of Sweet Lulu has ended.

Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer confirmed Thursday that Sweet Lulu, winner of the Grade 1 Test Stakes last summer at Saratoga, has been retired and will be sold as a broodmare.

“She has a small injury that is not going to affect her status as a broodmare,” Hollendorfer said. “My owner Steve Beneto wished to put her as a broodmare rather than bring her back and run her again.”

Sweet Lulu, sired by Mr. Greeley, made an immediate splash on the racetrack. She won her May 30 debut at Hollywood Park, and followed with back-to-back allowance wins at Hollywood and Del Mar before shipping to Saratoga for the Test.

In just the fourth start of her career, Sweet Lulu scored a gritty victory, winning the Test by a head under jockey Julien Leparoux.

Though winless in three subsequent starts, Sweet Lulu’s late-season performances in 2013 affirmed her as one of the country’s top 3-year-old fillies.

She finished second in the Grade 1 Cotillion at Parx Racing, fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Santa Anita, and in the final start of her career, on Dec. 26 at Santa Anita, she finished second in the Grade 1 La Brea Stakes.

“I loved her from the moment I bought her,” Hollendorfer said. “And we paid some money for her.”

Sweet Lulu, 4, was produced by Grade 3 winner Successful Outlook (by Orientate), and sold for $270,000 at the 2011 Keeneland September yearling sale. She finishes her racing career having won four races and $693,600 from seven starts.

“She’s a great big, good-looking filly and I think she’ll make an outstanding broodmare,” Hollendorfer said.

Details regarding her broodmare career are pending.