American Horse of the Year Azeri (Jade Hunter-Zodiac Miss {Aus}, by Ahonoora {GB}) has been pensioned from broodmare duty. The chestnut will instead become a lead horse, educating weanlings and yearlings at the Northern Horse Park in Japan according to a recent video posted by the park. The news was first reported by Daily Racing Form.
Bred by Allen E. Paulson, Azeri raced in his living trust's colors to wins in 11 Grade I races, while picking up titles as Champion Older Mare in 2002/03/04 and a Horse of the Year title in 2002. She won three editions of the GI Apple Blossom H. (02-04) and two editions each of the GI Vanity H. (02/03) and GI Milady Breeders' Cup H. in the same two years, respectively. In addition, she won the 2002 GI Breeders' Cup Distaff, 2002 GI Santa Margarita Invitational H. as well as the 2004 GI Spinster S. and 2004 GI Go for Wand H. For the first several seasons of her career she was trained by Laura de Seroux before being transferred to D. Wayne Lukas for her 2004 campaign. In total the game chestnut earned $4,079,820 with 17 wins from 24 starts.
During the American portion of her broodmare career Azeri's three foals were led by MGSW and GI Juddmonte Spinster third Wine Princess (Ghostzapper) and GSP Arienza (Giant's Causeway). She was purchased for $2.25 million by Katsumi Yoshida at Keeneland November in 2009 and had another nine foals in Japan. From that bunch, the best were the MGSP Leukerbad (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) and GSP Shirvanshah (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}). Overall, Azeri foaled nine winners from nine runners. Her latest produce is a Drefong filly of 2020.
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