Summer Soiree retired from racing

Team Valor has retired Grade 1-winning filly Summer Soiree, who finished third Sunday in the Matriarch Stakes at Hollywood Park.

The 4-year-old daughter of War Front will be bred to Medaglia d’Oro in 2013, and Team Valor plans to offer her for auction in foal at next year’s November sales.

Summer Soiree won last year’s Del Mar Oaks and finished second to Star Billing in the 2011 Matriarch, both Grade 1 events. She also won the Grade 3 Boiling Springs Stakes and Bourbonette Oaks last season.

In addition to her recent Matriarch third to Better Lucky, Summer Soiree also finished third in the Grade 2 Ballston Spa Stakes this year. She leaves the track with 5 wins from 16 starts, 1 second, and 5 thirds, for earnings of $506,180.

Team Valor privately bought Summer Soiree after her 10 3/4-length Bourbonette score on March 26, 2011, from her breeders Brereton C. Jones, Jr. and Bret Jones and the Wahoo Partners group. Moved from trainer Larry Jones to Graham Motion, Summer Soiree finished 10th in Plum Pretty’s Kentucky Oaks but bounced back to take the Boiling Springs and the Del Mar Oaks.

Summer Soiree is out of the Mazel Trick winner Mazel Tov. She’s her dam’s first stakes winner and is from the family of graded stakes winners and Grade 1-placed Mil Kilates and Forcing Bid.