'The only thing that exceeded her talent was her demeanour and kindness' - death of champion Echo Zulu

The 2021 US champion two-year-old filly Echo Zulu was euthanised on Sunday at a veterinary hospital in southern California after sustaining a leg injury in her box.

Echo Zulu suffered a biaxial sesamoid fracture of her left front fetlock on October 13 while training for the Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita. Biaxial sesamoid bone fractures are when a horse breaks both sesamoids in the same leg.

Trainer Steve Asmussen told the Daily Racing Form that Echo Zulu had "become cast in her stall and was injured when she tried to rise to her feet."

David Fiske, racing manager for Winchell Thoroughbreds, which co-owned and campaigned Echo Zulu with L and N Racing, said: "I always maintained hope that we could get her back and extend her life.

"I don't know that I ever got to the point where I was thinking, 'Oh, yeah, we've got this.' It was always guarded optimism and just horribly unfortunate, the whole thing beginning to end."

Echo Zulu underwent surgery on October 14. Fiske said at the time that Dr Ryan Carpenter, who performed the surgery, said the best-case scenario for Echo Zulu would be to one day see her out in the field with a foal. 

Fiske said: "That's what we were all hoping for. But that's not going to happen.”

In her Eclipse-winning year, Echo Zulu was undefeated in four starts, winning the Grade 1 Spinaway Stakes and Frizette Stakes, before claiming the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies at Del Mar.

She came back the next year with wins in the Grade 2 Fair Grounds Oaks and Grade 3 Dogwood Stakes, sandwiched around a fourth in the Kentucky Oaks. She returned to the Breeders' Cup at Keeneland, where she finished runner-up in the Filly & Mare Sprint to future champion Goodnight Olive.

"She was one of the fastest horses in training," said Fiske. "I think she was the fastest horse we've maybe ever campaigned. But as Steve said to me this morning, the only thing that exceeded her talent on the racetrack was her demeanour and kindness around the barn. So it's a blow to everybody."

By Gun Runner and out of the Menifee mare Letgomyecho, the five-year-old Echo Zulu was 9-1-0 from 11 starts and earned $2,640,375. What turned out to be her final start, a triumphant one in the Grade 1 Ballerina Handicap, moved her top of her sire's progeny earnings list. 

She was Gun Runner's first Grade 1 winner, taking the Spinaway on her second start a day before the sire’s son Gunite won the Hopeful Stakes.

Winchell purchased Echo Zulu at the 2020 Keeneland September Sale for $300,000 out of the Betz Thoroughbreds consignment. 

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