Though he did not win a Triple Crown or Breeders' Cup event, Holy Bull is remembered as one of horse racing's greatest champions.
Horse of the Year in 1994 after five Grade 1 victories in his 3-year-old season, Holy Bull went on to sire a Kentucky Derby winner, Giacomo (2005), a small measure of vindication for his own inexplicably poor performance (12th) in the Churchill Downs classic.
On Wednesday, three days before the 149th Belmont Stakes, Holy Bull was put down at Jonabell Farm in Lexington, Ky., where he had resided since his retirement to stud in 1995. The big gray horse, a 13-time winner from 16 starts with earnings of $2,481,760, was 26 and, according to reports, succumbed to the infirmities of old age.
Trained by the late Jimmy Croll, Holy Bull's biggest victories included the Travers, Woodward, Met Mile, Haskell Invitational and Florida Derby -- all in his 3-year-old season. Croll entered horse racing's Hall of Fame in 1994 and Holy Bull followed in 2001.
"If you were putting together your fantasy horse stable for the last 25 years, you'd have to have Holy Bull in your top five," said Godolphin USA president Jimmy Bell, whose family owned Jonabell before its sale in 2001. "Horses like Holy Bull just don't come along that often. I've always said, he was a specialist -- short, grass, long or dirt. Just a fantastic reacehorse.
"You can't mention his name without using such words as 'fighter, determination and guts,"' Bell was quoted in the online Paulick Report.
Sports on 06/09/2017