LEXINGTON, Ky. - Flightline’s brief but brilliant career is over.
As expected, Flightline was retired from racing Sunday morning, the day after his dominant 8 1/4-length victory in Saturday’s $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland.
The official announcement came via a press release issued Sunday morning from Lane’s End Farm, where he will stand as the property of a syndicate with a stud fee still be announced, per the release.
Fair Grounds Racecourse will be forced to limit use of its turf course during the early portion of the New Orleans’ track’s 2022-23 racing season.
The inner lanes of the grass course aren’t in satisfactory condition for racing and, when the meet opens Nov. 18, a limited number of turf races will be conducted with the temporary rail set at 27 feet, its outermost position.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Having bagged six of the seven Breeders’ Cup Turf races on Friday and Saturday, the European contingent that arrived in Lexington on Oct. 28 was headed home on Sunday and Monday.
The Godolphin horses were scheduled to fly to England on Sunday night, having extracted three trophies and $6.82 million in purse money from the Breeders’ Cup.
The rest of the Euros, including Aidan O’Brien’s highly successful raiding party, travel home on Monday.
LEXINGTON, KY. - Juan Leyva’s voice was still cracking with emotion leaving the Keeneland winner’s circle 20 minutes after Flightline’s breathtaking performance in the Breeders’ Cup Classic when asked to talk about the horse who has dominated so much of his life over the last two years.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Total handle on the 14 Breeders’ Cup races held on Friday and Saturday at Keeneland Racecourse was a record $161.99 million, according to charts of the races, and a 4.9-percent gain on last year's record handle of $154.45 million.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - A day after his Cave Rock got beat in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, trainer Bob Baffert unleashed a potential future star in Arabian Knight, who lived up to his $2.3 million price tag Saturday by winning his debut by 7 1/4 lengths at Keeneland.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – To become the horse that he is today, Kinross had to cease being a horse.
In England, horses and colts, called “entires” there, are distinguished from geldings. And gelding Kinross late in the winter of 2021 put him on a path back to distinguished performance.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Trainer Mark Casse said all was well early Saturday with Wonder Wheel, whose three-length triumph the previous afternoon in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies surely clinched a divisional Eclipse Award for the Into Mischief filly.
Casse said Wonder Wheel will leave Keeneland on Sunday for a brief rest at his training center in Ocala, Fla., where she will eventually ease back into training to prepare for the May 5 Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Forte, the 1 1/2-length winner of Friday’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Keeneland, will get about a 30-day break before beginning preparations for a 3-year-old campaign that will likely include two races before a planned start in the May 6 Kentucky Derby.
