Havre de Grace, the 2011 Horse of the Year and a record-setting broodmare prospect at auction, died Sunday due to complications after foaling, Thoroughbred Daily News reports.
Wayne Sweezey of Timber Town Stable, where the 16-year-old daughter of Saint Liam was boarded, confirmed to the TDN that the mare hemorrhaged multiple times after delivering a colt by Into Mischief on Friday afternoon, and she succumbed in the early hours on Sunday.
Havre de Grace was owned by the Whisper Hill Farm operation of Mandy Pope, who was in attendance for the foaling, and the aftermath.
Havre de Grace won nine of 16 starts during her on-track career, earning $2,586,175 for owner Fox Hill Farm and trainer Larry Jones.
She began to scrape national prominence during her 3-year-old season, when she won the Grade 2 Cotillion Stakes and finished third in the 2010 Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic at Churchill Downs.
Havre de Grace then took center stage at age four, with a campaign that included early-season scores in the G1 Apple Blossom Handicap, and the G3 Azeri Stakes and Obeah Stakes. She then stared down male competition for the first time in the G1 Woodward Stakes at Saratoga Race Course, where she sat a patient trip under jockey Ramon Dominguez and won by 1 1/4 lengths.
The filly's fall campaign an 8 1/4-length drubbing in the G1 Beldame Invitational Stakes in her return to female competition, then she went back into open company for that year's Breeders' Cup Classic at Churchill Downs, where she finished fourth to Drosselmeyer.
At the end of the year, Havre de Grace was honored with the Eclipse Awards for Horse of the Year and champion older female.
Havre de Grace raced one more time at age five, defeating an overmatched field in the listed New Orleans Ladies Classic Stakes at the Fair Grounds before being retired due to injury.
She was then cataloged in the 2012 Fasig-Tipton November Sale, where Pope secured the mare for $10 million, which was a world-record price for a broodmare prospect.
All five of Havre de Grace's foals to race are winners, led by Graceful Princess, a daughter of Tapit who won the Grade 3 Molly Pitcher Stakes in 2021. Prior to her final colt by Into Mischief, Havre de Grace's youngest foal was a 2-year-old Justify colt who is yet to be named.
TDN confirmed that a nurse mare has already been found for Havre de Grace's foal, and that he has accepted her. Havre de Grace will be cremated, and a portion of her ashes will be spread at Timber Town.
Read more at Thoroughbred Daily News.
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