Navarro: Grade 1 winner Sharp Azteca retired from racing
Grade 1 winner Sharp Azteca has been retired from racing, according to a statement from Jorge Navarro Racing Stable.
Sharp Azteca last raced nine months ago in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup. There is no decision on where he will stand at stud and he is currently at Gelfenstein Farm in Ocala, Fla.
"It has been an honor for me to train a horse like Sharp Azteca," Navarro said in the statement. "He’s the type of horse that every trainer wants to have [in] his barn. Winner of six stakes races (five graded) including the G1 Cigar Mile, one of the most prestigious races in America run over a mile on dirt.
"From the first day I saw Sharp Azteca I knew that he was a special horse, together we managed to compete at the highest level in 10 different racetracks. I would like to thank Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Scharf for entrusting me with the care of Sharp Azteca, a horse that I will always carry in my heart. I’m pretty sure that, just as he was a brilliant runner, he will also be an extraordinary stallion."
Sharp Azteca earned his first Grade 1 victory in November's Cigar Mile when he drew away to win by 5 1/4-lengths over Mind Your Biscuits and Practical Joke. That effort followed a close defeat in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile, where Sharp Azteca nearly led the whole way before Battle of Midway caught him by half a length.
Also making 2017 a standout year were wins in the Grade 2 Hardacre Mile Gulfstream Park Handicap, the Grade 3 Monmouth Cup Stakes and the Grade 2 Kelso Handicap. His first stakes win came as a 3-year-old the year before in the Grade 3 Pat Day Mile on Kentucky Derby day.
Sharp Azteca, now 5, was last seen finishing eighth in January's Pegasus World Cup. He then missed a return trip to Dubai due to inflammation in his foot. The goal was to run in the Group 2 Godolphin Mile, a race in which he was third in last year.
Gelfenstein Farm purchased the Kentucky-bred son of Freud for $220,000 as a 2-year-old at the Ocala Breeders' Sale in April 2015. He boasts a record of 8-5-1 from 17 starts and earned over $2.4 million on the track.