Smooth Like Strait, a Grade 1 winner with a penchant for running second in big spots, has been retired from racing with a possible future at stud in 2024, Daily Racing Form reports.
The 6-year-old son of Midnight Lute finished his career with seven wins in 26 starts for earnings of $1,813,863, highlighted by a victory in the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile Stakes at Santa Anita Park. After that victory, he finished second in six of his next seven starts, including the 2021 Breeders' Cup Mile at Del Mar, the G1 Arlington Million Stakes at Churchill Downs, and his defense of the Shoemaker Mile in 2022. Michael McCarthy trained the horse.
“He had so many close seconds,” owner Michael Cannon told DRF. “He almost made $2 million and it could have been 4 or 5 (million). We were starting to call him Smooth Like Second.”
Smooth Like Strait's form had tailed off after finishing ninth in last year's Breeders' Cup Mile, prompting his retirement. His final start was a fifth-place effort in the Cotton Fitzsimmons Handicap at Turf Paradise on March 11.
Cannon said Smooth Like Strait would be sent to his farm in Nevada for the rest of the year, with a possible stud debut at a farm in Kentucky or California for the 2024 breeding season. Smooth Like Strait raced as a homebred for Cannon, and he said he would support the horse's new endeavor at stud with his own mares.
Read more at Daily Racing Form.
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