Seeking the Soul Retired With Tendon Injury

Seeking the Soul, a grade 1 winner with earnings of more than $3.4 million, has been retired with a tendon injury, owner Charles Fipke said.

The homebred 7-year-old son of Perfect Soul won or placed in 11 stakes over a 32-race career, topped by victories in the Ack Ack Stakes (G3), Stephen Foster Stakes (G2), and Clark Handicap Presented by Norton Healthcare (G1). All three of those victories came at his home track of Churchill Downs, where he trained for a large part of his career.

He was at his best from the fall of 2017, when he captured the Clark, through the spring of last year, highlighted by his victory in the Stephen Foster. He was outrun in five top-level starts afterward, including the Longines Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) at Santa Anita Park and the Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes Presented by Runhappy (G1) at Gulfstream Park.

His connections gave him a break after a seventh in the Jan. 25 Pegasus. He picked up speed in his recent workouts, topped by a six-furlong breeze in 1:12 1/5 at Churchill Downs June 12, before being sidelined.

Fipke said he did not know details of the injury but reported that Dr. Robert Hunt of Hagyard Equine Medical Institute told him the tendon injury "is pretty bad. So he's finished, his racing career."

Trainer Dallas Stewart said Seeking the Soul was sent to Fipke's C. F. Farms in Paris, Ky., where the horse was born.

The news of Seeking the Soul's retirement was first reported by Daily Racing Form's Marty McGee.

Stewart said the horse brought him and Fipke many highlights, mentioning a trip to the Dubai World Cup Presented by Emirates Airline (G1) in which he ran eighth in 2019, and he remembered the horse's runner-up finishes to City of Light  in both the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile (G1) in 2018 and the 2019 Pegasus World Cup. 

"He came to us as a 2-year-old and stayed with us a long time," the trainer said. "He was a real aggressive-type horse. He showed up and trained hard every day. He had the heart of a lion—a great horse to be around, for sure."

Seeking the Soul is out of the Seeking the Gold mare Seeking the Title, a graded winner owned by Fipke and trained by Stewart. He is one of two winners for his dam.

Though Perfect Soul was at his best on turf for Fipke and trainer Roger Attfield, Seeking the Soul excelled on dirt and never raced on grass.

Fipke has numerous stallions in the United States and Canada, including Bee Jersey , Tale of Ekati , and Tale of Verve  at Darby Dan Farm near Lexington. He said it is too early to say where he will stand Seeking the Soul.

"I'll check all my mares to see which ones can breed, which ones go with him and everything," he said. "Of course, he'll get a good group of mares from me wherever he stands."