October 10th 2016

It was announced today that the popular 3 year-old colt Exaggerator was retired from racing and he will stand at WinStar Farm in Versailles, Kentucky to begin his stud career. The son of Curlin is the only 3 year-old to win three Grade 1 stakes races in 2016 (shown below). He had qualified for the Breeders’ Cup Classic with his win in the Haskell Invitational back in late July. So it appears that Arrogate and Nyquist will be the only two 3 year-olds competing in this year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic. And Nyquist will stand at Darley America following his final start in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. 

The decision shouldn’t be much of a surprise given that Exaggerator seemed to only excel on wet, sloppy tracks and had an 11th place and 7th place finish in his last two starts. I will add that I think his running style and penchant to like an off track, that this would translated very well to turf and hoped that the Desormeaux brothers tried he once on that surface.

Exaggerator retires with six wins in 15 starts, five of which were stakes wins and earnings of $3,581,120. A look back at Exaggerator’s three biggest wins.

The 2016 Santa Anita Derby

---

The 2016 Preakness Stakes

---

The 2016 Haskell Invitational 

---

I will be posting updated Breeders’ Cup Classic contender rankings by Wednesday evening.

–Michael