Report: Popular gelding Gander, 26, dies on New York farm

Gander, a durable gelding whose popularity grew with every race he ran in the Northeast between 1998 and 2004, died Wednesday morning at age 26 on an upstate New York farm, according to Daily Racing Form.

He had lived his final years at Mill Creek Farm in Stillwater, N.Y., about 14 miles south of Saratoga Race Course.

Owned by Mike Gatsas and trained first by the late Charles Assimakopoulos and later by John Terranova, Gander was a distinctly gray horse who won 15 of his 60 races and earned $1,824,011. Most of his victories came at Aqueduct, Belmont Park, the Meadowlands, Saratoga and Suffolk Downs. He also won once at Gulfstream Park.

“He was a lunch-box horse,” Gatsas told the New York Racing Association in 2020. “Every time we put him on the track, he performed well.”

Bred in New York by Angela Rugnetta, Gander’s highest-class win came in the 2001 Meadowlands Cup Handicap (G2). More memorable, though, were his two close calls against odds-on favorites in the Woodward (G1) at Belmont Park. As a 41-1 long shot in 2000, he tracked the leaders before finishing third, only three-quarters of a length behind Lemon Drop Kid. Two years later at odds of 8-1, he led in mid-stretch only to be caught late, finishing second to Lido Palace.

Sired by three-time graded-stakes winner Cormorant, Gander was named the horse of the year in both New England and New York in 2000. He also was chosen as New York’s top 3-year-old in 1999 and the state’s best older horse from 2000 to 2002.

The Gatsas brothers, Mike and Ted, bought Gander for $50,000 at a 1998 sale in Ocala, Fla. He was one of the first five horses they owned.

“He was one of two in that group that became a graded-stakes winner, so we caught the bug right away,” Mike Gatsas said, also referring to Shadow Caster.

Gander won six stakes in his career, all handicaps. The last was the Kings Point Handicap at Aqueduct in the spring of 2004. As he was being prepared for one last race that summer, Gander suffered a career-ending fracture to a cannon bone during a workout at Saratoga.

“He ran against a lot of good ones and held his own,” Terranova told NYRA nearly three years ago. “It was fun watching him in the Meadowlands Cup at night years back. We had some fun with him.”