Stalwart graded stakes winner Jaxon Traveler retired

Maryland-bred multiple graded stakes winner Jaxon Traveler, who won at least one stakes race each year from ages 2 to 7, has been retired from racing.

Owner West Point Thoroughbreds reported in a release that the Munnings horse, whose last race was a fifth in an allowance race last month at Lone Star, retires sound, with a career mark of 37-13-8-5 and earnings of more than $1.1 million. Stud plans have not yet been finalized.

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“Jaxon Traveler has been an absolute dream to have in the barn,” West Point president and CEO Terry Finley said in the release. “[Steve Asmussen] did a Hall of Fame job managing his career, getting aggressive at the right times and being conservative at the right times. As hard as it is to say goodbye to a horse who still walks the shed row with such pride, we know it’s prudent to avoid the ‘one more race’ mentality. That philosophy is a gift we give to horses like him.”

Jaxon Traveler won all three of his starts at 2, including the Maryland Juvenile Futurity, to lock up honors as the state’s outstanding juvenile. He was Maryland-bred champion 3-year-old the following year, when he won the Star de Naskra at Pimlico and Bachelor at Oaklawn, and did not miss the board, including finishing second in the Grade 3 Chick Lang at Pimlico.

Appropriately, Jaxon Traveler got his first graded stakes win during his home state’s biggest weekend the following year, taking the Grade 3 Maryland Sprint on the Preakness Stakes undercard. He added the 2023 Zia Park Sprint to his resume. In 2024, his final full season of racing, Jaxon Traveler won the Grade 3 Whitmore at Oaklawn, and added another Zia Park Sprint, the Bill Thomas Memorial at Sunland, and the David M. Vance at Remington. Earlier this year, he won the Ft. Bliss at Sunland.

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