Champion sprinter Work All Week dies after paddock accident

Work All Week, the 2015 Eclipse Award-winning Champion Sprinter and 2014 Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner, died earlier this week, the Old Friends Thoroughbred retirement farm in Georgetown, Ky., announced on Saturday.

According to Old Friends equine veterinarian Dr. Bryan Waldridge, the 14-year-old stallion suffered a paddock accident and died on Monday. A full necropsy is still pending.

The chestnut gelding arrived at the farm on Aug. 21, 2020 courtesy of his owners, Richard and Karen Papiese's Midwest Thoroughbreds, Inc.

Bred and owned by Midwest Thoroughbreds, Work All Week, who is by City Zip--Danzig Matilda, by Repriced, was foaled on March 9, 2009, in Illinois.

Trained his entire career by Roger A. Brueggemann, Work All Week began his racing career on Nov. 11, 2013 as a 3-year old, and in his first, and only, start that year, finished sixth in a maiden special weight race at Hawthorne Race Course, where he would be based.

He opened his 4-year old campaign in 2013 with a three-race winning streak. The first two races were at Hawthorne, where he won his first career race in a maiden special weight race, and then an allowance race. He followed that up with another allowance race win, this one at Arlington Park.

Then, after a second in the black type Addison Cammack Handicap at Arlington Park, he went on a seven-race win streak that stretched over a two-year period.

It began with wins in two straight allowance optional claiming races, the first at Arlington Park and the second at Horseshoe Indianapolis. Next he won the black type Tex's Zing Stakes at Fairmount Park for his first stakes win, then followed with a win in the black type Lightning Jet Handicap at Hawthorne to end his 2013 season. For his efforts that year he was named Illinois Horse of the Year.

As a 5-year old in 2014, he continued his streak with wins in an allowance optional claiming race at Oaklawn Park, the listed Hot Springs Stakes at Oaklawn Park, and the Iowa Sprint Handicap at Prairie Meadows.

His win streak ended in his next race where it had all began with a second in the Addison Cammack Handicap at Arlington.

Following that race, Work All Week moved up into top-class company and won the two biggest races of his career. The first came at Keeneland when he won the Phoenix Stakes (G3), for his first graded-stakes victory. The second win would become his greatest career triumph when he won the Breeders' Cup Sprint at Santa Anita by a half-length over race favorite, Secret Circle.

Thanks to his performances in 2014, he won the Eclipse Award as Champion Sprinter, as well as his second consecutive Illinois Horse of the Year award.

Work All Week returned to the track in 2015 as a 6-year old and ran only four times, with his best finish being a win in the listed Sen. Robert C. Byrd Memorial Stakes at Mountaineer.

In his next start he placed third in the Phoenix Stakes (G3) at Keeneland on Oct. 2, a race he had won the previous year. It would be the final race of his career. A few days afterward it was discovered that he had suffered a knee fracture and he was retired.

He closed out his racing career with a record of 13 wins, four seconds, one third, and $1,511,071 in earnings in 19 starts.

Over the next five years, he became a stable pony until 2020 when the Papieses decided to send him to Old Friends for his retirement.

“Even though I bet on second place finisher, Secret Circle, in the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, I fell in love with Work All Week and his owners, Richard and Karen Papiese, who supported him and his pal, The Pizza Man, ever since they arrived at Old Friends,” Old Friends president and founder Michael Blowen said after Work All Week's death.