World Approval retired from racing

World Approval, the Eclipse Award champion turf male of 2017, has been retired. The 7-year-old Northern Afleet gelding will reside at owner-breeder Charlotte Weber's Live Oak Stud in Ocala, Fla.

Following his championship season, World Approval won the Grade 3 Tampa Bay Stakes to start 2018, but then finished fifth in the Grade 1 Frank Kilroe Mile and, in what turned out to be his final start, sixth in the Grade 2 Wise Dan Stakes at Churchill Downs that June. After that outing, Weber and trainer Mark Casse elected to give the gelding the rest of the season off at Live Oak as a freshening, with an eye on a 2019 campaign. But he never did return to the work tab and instead retires with a career record of 27-12-2-4 and earnings of $3,062,363.

World Approval won 10 stakes during his career, highlighted by the 2017 Breeders' Cup Mile at Del Mar, leading home Lancaster Bomber by 1 1/4 lengths in a full field. He also won the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile, Grade 1 Fourstardave Handicap, Grade 2 Dixie Stakes, and Woodford Reserve Turf Classic Stakes during his championship season. His five stakes wins on the season came on five different turf courses.

“I think obviously to win this race you have to be a great horse, and he proved that today,” Casse said following the Breeders’ Cup victory. “Great horses can go and win. When things don't go their way, they can go and run anywhere and win, and he's truly a great horse. You can't train greatness. You can just kind of make sure you don't get in their way.”

World Approval's other stakes victories came in the Tampa Bay last year, the Grade 1 United Nations Stakes in 2016, and the Grade 3 American Derby, Grade 3 Saranac Stakes, and the Sophomore Turf Stakes in 2015.

World Approval is the final foal out of Weber's remarkable mare Win Approval, now 27. The With Approval mare also is the dam of Eclipse champion turf male Miesque's Approval, winner of the 2006 Breeders' Cup Mile and earner of more than $2.6 million. Her other foals include Grade 2-winning millionaire Revved Up and Grade 3-winning millionaire Za Approval; the latter's multiple Grade 1 placings included a second to two-time Horse of the Year Wise Dan in the 2013 Breeders’ Cup Mile.

Revved Up and Za Approval are both retired at Live Oak, and World Approval will reside in an adjoining paddock to his dam and half-siblings.

“How lucky we have been at Live Oak to have championed such a winning family,” Weber said in a press release announcing her champion’s retirement. “I am proud and privileged to have experienced this Sport of Kings with such outstanding racehorses and shall protect them as we grow older together.”