Secret Status retired for breeding

Secret Status, winner of the 2000 Kentucky Oaks, has been retired after finishing sixth of 10 in Sunday's Grade 1 Overbrook Spinster Stakes at Keeneland, trainer Neil Howard said Wednesday.

"We think that maybe she's kind of tailing off. She didn't quite run as well as we thought she would in her last couple of starts, so we're going to call it a day," Howard said from his barn at Churchill Downs. "She's going to be a broodmare now."

Howard said no decision had yet been made as to whom Secret Status would be bred next spring.

Secret Status, a 4-year-old filly by A.P. Indy out of the Alydar mare Private Status, was bred and owned by a partnership headed by Will Farish, who owns Lane's End Farm and is now the United States Ambassador to Great Britain.

Secret Status won eight times in 19 starts and earned $1,053,705. In addition to the Kentucky Oaks, her other Grade 1 victory came in the 2000 Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park. She won twice in six starts this year, both in classified allowances.

Howard said Secret Status's Kentucky Oaks victory ranked with Summer Squall's 1990 Preakness win as the highlights of his training career.

"It's a photo finish," he said. "The people with Summer Squall were great, but it had more personal meaning to win the Oaks with Mr. Farish," for whom Howard works as a private trainer.