LITTLE ROCK — There was no “Race for the Ages” for Rachel Alexandra.
Now there won’t be any more races at all.
Majority owner Jess Jackson announced Tuesday afternoon that he was retiring 2009 Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra, who began her historic campaign at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs.
The move, which came one day after Rachel Alexandra worked a half-mile in :48.45 at Saratoga in upstate New York,wasn’t a major surprise since the 4-year-old filly never came close to replicating her 2009 form in which she won all eight starts and beat males three times.
Rachel Alexandra won only 2 of 5 starts this year.
“Rachel Alexandra owes us nothing,” Jackson said in a statement released Tuesday afternoon. “As a 3-year-old, she set standards and records that no filly before her ever achieved. And I suspect it will be quite a while before a 3-year-old filly ever equals or surpasses her achievements.
“Although her fans were thrilled by a series of spectacular victories, I believe they, as we, were simply awed time and again by her sheer beauty, courage and athleticism.”
Rachel Alexandra will join Jackson’s broodmare band at his Stonestreet Farm in Lexington, Ky., where she will be bred next year to Curlin.
Jackson also campaigned Curlin, who was named Horse of the Year in 2007-2008.
Rachel Alexandra retires with a 13-5-0 record from 19 lifetime starts and earnings of $3,506,730.
She was ridden in her last 14 career starts by Calvin Borel, a two-time leading jockey at Oaklawn.
Rachel Alexandra’s 11 career stakes victories included the $50,000 Martha Washington and the $250,000 Grade II Fantasy in 2009 at Oaklawn.
Oaklawn owner Charles Cella had hoped to match Rachel Alexandra and unbeaten Zenyatta for the first time in the Apple Blossom on April 9, the track’s signature race for older fillies and mares.
Billed as the “Race for the Ages,” Cella said the purse for the Apple Blossom would be raised from $500,000 to $5 million - a world record for females - if Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta started.
But Jackson pulled the plug a day after Rachel Alexandra’s shocking second-place finish in her 4-year-old debut, the $200,000 New Orleans Ladies on March 13 at Fair Grounds in New Orleans.
The New Orleans Ladies, a race specifically written for Rachel Alexandra, foreshadowed her 2010 season.
Rachel Alexandra finished second in her next start, the $400,000 Grade II La Troienne Stakes on April 30 at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.
She won the $200,000 Grade II Fleur de Lis Handicap on June 12 at Churchill Downs and another race written specifically for her, the $400,000 Grade II Lady’s Secret on July 24 at Monmouth Park in New Jersey.
In what would be her final career start, a leg-weary Rachel Alexandra finished second, beaten a length, in the $300,000 Grade I Personal Ensign Stakes on Aug. 29 at Saratoga.
“I can’t recall ever seeing people be more careful with an animal than they were with her,” said Terry Wallace, Oaklawn’s media relations director. “They came under a lot of criticism, and there were people who thought she should be running in bigger races. They knew what they had there. It’s kind of like we all know about our property, where the strengths and weaknesses lie. They could always tell that things weren’t exactly right.”
That wasn’t the case in 2009.
With her distinctive white facial markings - a curvedstar and a separate triangular stripe - Rachel Alexandra delivered a campaign for the ages by winning all eight starts, including three over males.
A bay daughter of Medaglia d’Oro, Rachel Alexandra wintered at Oaklawn with trainer Hal Wiggins and scored record-setting victories in the track’s Martha Washington Stakes and the $250,000 Grade II Fantasy Stakes by 8 3/4 lengths.
Rachel Alexandra then won the $500,000 Grade I Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs by a record 20 1/4 lengths.
She was expected to continue racing against fillies, but the script unexpectedly changed five days after the Kentucky Oaks when Dolphus Morrison, the filly’s breeder and co-owner, sold her for a reported $10 million to a partnership headed by Jackson, a California wine mogul.
Jackson and trainer Steve Asmussen mapped out a daring campaign for Rachel Alexandra, who subsequently beat males in the Preakness,the second leg of racing’s Triple Crown at Pimlico in Baltimore, the $1 million Grade I Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park in New Jersey and, in her final start of the year, the $500,000 Grade I Woodward Stakes at Saratoga.
She was the first filly since Nellie Morse in 1924 to win the Preakness.
Rachel Alexandra was named champion 3-year-old filly and beat Zenyatta, the two-time reigning champion older female, in a hotly debated battle for Horse of the Year.
But the devastating acceleration Rachel Alexandra displayed as a 3-year-old was clearly absent this year.
“She was able to put in a great 3-year-old year and a very good 4-year-old year by anybody else’s standards, except by her standards,” Wallace said. “She set the bar so high that it was going to be tough to follow it. She gave us a lot of great memories.”Rachel Alexandra at a glanceCOLOR Bay FOAL DATE Jan 29, 2006 RACE RECORD 19-13-5-0 EARNINGS $3,506,730 BREEDER Dolphus Morrison OWNER Jess Jackson and Harold McCormick TRAINER Steve Asmussen JOCKEY Calvin BorelSTAKES VICTORIES (11) Martha Washington, Lady’s Secret, Grade II Golden Rod, Grade II Fleur de Lis, Grade II Fantasy, Grade II Fair Grounds Oaks, Grade I Kentucky Oaks, Grade I Woodward, Grade I Haskell Invitational, Grade I Mother Goose, Grade I Preakness NOTE Races in bold at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs
Sports, Pages 21 on 09/29/2010