'Like with any family member, he will be truly missed' - WinStar Farm announces death of stalwart Speightstown

WinStar Farm has announced the death of its stalwart stallion Speightstown, who was euthanised aged 25 on Friday due to foot issues from old age. 

The chestnut was bred in Kentucky by Aaron and Marie Jones out of Canadian champion two-year-old Silken Cat. A $2 million yearling when sold out of the Taylor Made Sales Agency consignment at the Keeneland July Sale of Selected Yearlings in 1999, 

Speightstown went on to be a Eclipse Award-winning champion sprinter, winning ten of his 16 starts and placing in four others, amassing earnings of $1,258,256 for owners Eugene and Laura Melnyk and trainer Todd Pletcher. His signature win came in the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Lone Star Park in 2004, where he blazed home by a length and a quarter to earn championship honours. 

Speightstown also won a trio of Grade 2s in the Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap, True North Breeders’ Cup Handicap and Churchill Downs Handicap and finished third in the Grade 1 Vosburgh Stakes. 

Charlatan: one of 26 individual Group/Grade 1 winners for his sireCredit: Benoit Photography

Injuries limited Speightstown to just one start at two in 2000. He returned and won four of his seven starts at age three. Off nearly two years, he resumed his career in 2003, winning an allowance race in his first start since finishing second in the Amsterdam Stakes in 2001. He followed that win with a runner-up effort in the Jaipur Handicap in his only other outing that year. 

Speightstown's influence in the breeding shed will be felt for some time. He is responsible for 26 individual top-flight winners on all surfaces and at a range of distances, including Charlatan, Olympiad, Golden Ticket, Force The Pass and Lord Shanakill.

He has been represented by 228 black-type horses, 138 black-type winners, 65 Graded winners, and has more than $154 million in progeny earnings to date. Speightstown is one of only three active sires to win a Breeders’ Cup race and sire multiple Breeders’ Cup winners - colt and filly, dirt, and turf. His Breeders’ Cup winners are Tamarkuz, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile in 2016 and Sharing, winner of the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. 

Tamarkuz strides home in the 2016 Breeders' Cup Dirt MileCredit: Edward Whitaker

His sons at stud are led by Munnings, currently the seventh-ranked general sire of 2023, while his record-breaking sprint son Nashville stands at WinStar Farm and welcomes his first foals arrive in 2024. As a broodmare sire, Speightstown is the sire of 451 dams of 1,383 named foals of racing age with 1,011 runners (73 per cent), 698 winners (50 per cent), and 68 stakes winners topped by 2021 Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Aloha West.

Elliott Walden, president, CEO, and racing manager of WinStar Farm, said: "Speightstown was a foundational sire for WinStar and helped stamp our legacy as a sire-making farm. I want to thank Larry McGinnis and his team for all the love and care they gave “Speighty” as he was lovingly called. They helped him through three colic surgeries, and he had none in the last 13 years. His progeny ran on dirt, turf, six furlongs to 1¼ miles, and they always showed their grit. 

"Like with any family member, he will be truly missed. We are fortunate to have his son Nashville in the shed row, and we look forward to seeing Speightstown’s legacy continue through him, and as a broodmare sire.”

WinStar’s longtime stallion manager Larry McGinnis added: “We’ve been through a lot together in the last 19 years. We’ll miss our friend.”

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