Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Flightline is retired to stud

Lexington, Ky.

His retirement was confirmed Sunday morning by the executives who run his new breeding home. Trainer John Sadler admitted he did not sleep in the two weeks immediately past.

As those pronouncements were made by his human connections, Flightline seemed above it all. The morning after his 8 1/4-length victory in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, he stood with his head held high for a few early risers who made the pilgrimage to barn 60 at Keeneland.

It turned out to be a farewell.

Undefeated Flightline rolls to victory in Breeders' Cup Classic.

“Flightline, who capped a brilliant, unbeaten career with an 8 1/4-length victory in Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Classic, has been retired to Lane’s End Farm,” a news release said. “He will stand as the property of a syndicate with a stud fee still to be announced.” (Read the release here.)

Earlier at Keeneland, Bill Farish of Lane’s End was asked if there were any chance that he and his fellow owners – Kosta and Pete Hronis, Anthony Manganaro’s Siena Farm, breeder Jane Lyon’s Summer Wind Equine and Terry Finley’s West Point Thoroughbreds – would consider racing Flightline as a 5-year-old, even if it were just the Jan. 28 running of the $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1) at Gulfstream Park.

“There’s definitely been discussion,” Farish said. “Again, we still haven’t had a chance to get everybody together, so we’re going to do that today. And we’ll decide.”

Then Farish dropped the line that signaled the inevitable.

“Who runs against him?”

It was another way of saying that with a 6-for-6 record that includes four Grade 1 wins with three against open company, Flightline has nothing left to prove.

“What is there left to do,” Farish said. “The four best 3-year-olds in the country were in the race. He’s beaten all the older. I don’t know. That’s definitely going to enter into it. Is there anything left to conquer? Or is it just money?”

Flightline is sitting on top of a pile of cash as a stallion. It is not just about his carrying the ranking as the world’s No. 1 active Thoroughbred, whether the prism is Timeform or the International Federation of Racehorse Authorities. The term “impeccably bred” applies to the colt by Tapit out of the Indian Charlie mare Feathered.

In 2022, Dubawi commanded the world’s most expensive stud fee of $284,437 followed by U.S.-based Into Mischief at $250,000. Flightline’s sire Tapit was getting $185,000 for each standing and nursing foal. There is every reason to believe Flightline could be in that kind of high-rent district that would yield tens of millions of dollars a year.

Sadler said he celebrated Saturday’s victory at a quiet dinner with the Hronis brothers, and then he admitted it has been a restless time since Flightline was flown from California to Kentucky.

“I haven’t been sleeping for the last two weeks,” he said. “So what do you want to go do after the race? I want to go home and go to sleep.”

It was not a case of an abnormally heavy workload for Sadler keeping him awake.

“Just the stress,” he said bluntly. “When you’re expected to win, just the stress of it all, I was not resting well.”

Sadler put on a brave face, then, when he maintained a matter-of-fact confidence about how good Flightline had been in his first five victories and would yet be in the Classic.

“That’s what you need to do,” he said. “You need a persona that everything’s calm, even if inside you’re not. You’re coaching the World Series or whatever. Inside, you’re not God.”

Sadler, 66, said he was looking forward to more high-level success in the years to come. He singled out a Quality Road colt who was a $2.5 million sale topper in last month’s Keeneland yearling auction.

“We’ve got some high-enders coming in next year,” he said. “As a trainer you’ve got to keep thinking there’s more. You may never, ever have one that good again. That’s long odds. But you’ve got to think you’ve got other nice ones.”

While Sadler cut off his morning interviews to catch a plane, Flightline was back in his temporary stall. He was being prepared for his 10-mile van trip west to Lane’s End in a move that turned out to be not so temporary.