It’s farewell to Kingman
KINGMAN, who followed the mighty Frankel as the latest star off owner-breeder Khalid Abdullah’s famed production line with four Group 1 victories this season, has been retired.
The John Gosden-trained colt, whose successes this term include the Irish 2,000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes, was being treated for a throat infection, which put his participation in next month’s Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot on Champions Day in doubt.
Connections raised the possibility of rerouting to the Breeders’ Cup Mile on November 1, but the brilliant miler has been ruled out of that as well and is set to join Frankel at Abdullah’s Banstead Manor Stud near Newmarket for the 2015 breeding season.
“The throat infection will still need ongoing treatment which will rule out the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and also the Breeders Cup,” Abdullah’s long-serving racing manager Teddy Grimthorpe said on Monday. “The stud fee of the horse that has electrified European racing in 2014 will be announced by the stud when appropriate.”
A son of Invincible Spirit, Kingman was put into training with Gosden, who saddled his dam Zenda to win the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches in 2002. He made a sparkling start to his career when romping to a six-length win in a Newmarket maiden in July last year. Classic quotes followed although Gosden was not impressed with the hype, famously saying it was something for the “theatre of the absurd”.
Gosden, however, did point out the juvenile did not read the Racing Post and he made his next start – in Sandown’s Group 2 Solario Stakes – a winning one under James Doyle, who had recently been made Abdullah’s retained rider. Minor surgery to remove a chip in an ankle joint kept him off the track for the rest of last season, by which time the Aidan O’Brien-trained Australia – himself no stranger to hype – joined Abdullah’s exciting prospect at the head of the 2,000 Guineas betting.
Kingman beats Toronado in the 2014 Qipco Sussex Stakes
Making his seasonal reappearance in the Greenham Stakes at Newbury, Kingman produced a scintillating display and assumed outright favouritism for the Newmarket Classic, although things did not go to plan in a red-hot running of the race. Sent off the 6-4 market leader, he led with a furlong to go, but was edged out by 40-1 outsider Night Of Thunder with Australia in third.
An easy win in the Irish 2,000 – which Night Of Thunder missed – followed for Kingman, who was odds-on favourite for their rematch in the St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot.
Revenge was sweet as Kingman swept by his rival with the killer turn of foot that has become his trademark.
Richard Hannon, Night Of Thunder’s trainer, turned to last year’s crack miler Toronado for the Sussex Stakes, but the outcome was the same, as it was when Kingman recorded the last of his top-level wins in the Prix Jacques le Marois last month.
He ends his career with a near-flawless record of seven wins in eight starts and £970,834 in prize-money.
(source: Racing Post)
