Nine-year-old gelding Suedois (Fr) (Le Havre {Ire}) has been retired from racing, Racing Post reports, after a career in which he ran 50 times, winning 10 races, placing in 23 more and earning over £1.5-million.
“For a horse like him to have amassed the prizemoney he has is quite phenomenal really,” trainer David O'Meara told Racing Post. “There are plenty of top-class Group 1 horses that don't accumulate what he has in his career in terms of prizemoney and he'll definitely be missed around the yard.”
“He wouldn't have had the best of joints and we just felt that it possibly could be catching up with him so we felt it was best to call it a day with him,” O'Meara added.
Bred by Elisabeth Vidal from the first crop of Le Havre, Suedois started out in France with trainer Christian Baillet. Setting the stage for his career ahead he was rarely off the board during his first three seasons, and at four he won the G3 Prix de Meautry Barriere and a listed race at Maisons-Laffitte. Purchased by Nick Bradley and Jason Kelly for €165,000 at that year's Arqana Arc Sale, Suedois was gelded and transferred to O'Meara by new owners George Turner and Clipper Logistics. Over the next two seasons he placed in eight black-type sprints including three Group 1s before posting back-to-back wins in Ireland's G3 Boomerang S. and Keeneland's GI Shadwell Turf Mile in 2017. Over the next two seasons he hit the board a further six times at the pattern level before winning Goodwood's G3 Supreme S., and last year was third back at Keeneland in the Turf Mile. Suedois made three starts this year in the Middle East, winning a Meydan handicap and picking up another black-type placing at the same course before finishing fifth in the inaugural stc 1351 Cup on Saudi Cup Day on Feb. 29.
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