Seven-time Group 1 winner Magical retired

Magical, a seven-time Group 1 winner, has been retired to become a broodmare, her connections announced this week.

Trained by Aidan O’Brien for Coolmore, Magical twice finished second in the Breeders’ Cup Turf – to Enable in 2018 and to Tarnawa in 2020 – but won a host of important races in her own right. Magical was a two-time winner of the Irish Champion Stakes over 1 1/4 miles, probably her best distance, and might have hit a career peak capturing the 2020 renewal. There, having been beaten three lengths by Ghaiyyath – then the world’s highest-rated horse – in the Juddmonte International, Magical was aggressively ridden by Ryan Moore to keep Ghaiyyath within striking range, running him down for a three-quarter-length triumph.

Magical also was a two-time winner of the Group 1 Tatteralls Gold Cup and rated among the very best middle-distance horses in Europe while having the misfortune to overlap primes with Enable, who was her clear superior.

Magical ended her career with a third-place finish in the Hong Kong Cup earlier this month. She’d been scheduled for retirement after her 2019 campaign before connections had a change of heart last winter, bringing her back from a final season.

Magical is by Galileo out of Halfway to Heaven, by Pivotal. She ended her career with 12 wins from 28 starts and $6.57 million in earnings. Coolmore has yet to announce to whom Magical will be bred during the 2021 breeding season.

Royal Line disqualified for medication violation

Royal Line has been disqualified from his third-place finish in the British Champion Long Distance Cup on Oct. 17 and trainer John Gosden fined 1,000 pounds because of a positive drug test. Royal Line tested positive for triamcinolone acetonide, a commonly administered intra-articular corticosteroid permitted for therapeutic use but banned on race day in England. The horse was administered the drug, according to Gosden’s records, 17 days before racing, outside a recommended 14-day withdrawal period.