Champion mare & dual hall-of-famer Tepin dies in Europe

Tepin, a two-time Eclipse Award-winning mare and a member of the U.S. and Canada halls of fame, died in Europe, Coolmore trainer Aidan O’Brien said Saturday in Paris.

“Tepin has unfortunately died, and I imagine that her daughter will eventually pick up the baton at stud sooner or later,” O’Brien told France-Galop, the racing authority that is in charge of this weekend’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe meet in Paris.

O’Brien did not expand on the cause of death or when it happened. Thoroughbred Daily News reported that she died last year.

Bred in Kentucky by Machmer Hall, Tepin was foaled March 14, 2011. She was by Bernstein out of the Stravinsky mare Life Happened. Bought as a yearling for $140,000, owner Bat Masterson sent her to Mark Casse, who trained her through her four seasons of racing.

With a record of 23: 13-5-1 and earnings of $4,437,918, Tepin won six Grade 1 and Group 1 races. In North America they included the Just A Game, First Lady and Breeders’ Cup Mile in 2015 and the Jenny Wiley and Woodbine Mile in 2016. Perhaps most famously she captured the Queen Anne (G1) at Royal Ascot in 2016.

After she finished second in the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Mile, Tepin was sold for $8 million to Coolmore. Her progeny include 3-year-old filly Grateful, who won Saturday’s Prix de Royallieu (G1) at ParisLongchamp, and 2-year-old colt Delacroix, who broke his maiden in August at the Curragh.

Tepin was voted the champion grass mare in 2015 and 2016. She was inducted into the Canada Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2020 and the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in the U.S. in 2022.