Canadian Horse of the Year Starship Jubilee Retired

Reigning Canadian Horse of the Year Starship Jubilee has been retired and will be bred next year to Medaglia d'Oro , said Adam Corndorf, vice president and general manager for Blue Heaven Farm, who owns the mare.

News of her retirement was first reported by Daily Racing Form.

She last competed Nov. 7 in the Maker's Mark Breeder's Cup Filly & Mare Turf (G1T) at Keeneland, where she unseated jockey Florent Geroux at the start after stumbling. Running riderless, she was corralled by an outrider. Neither horse nor rider was injured.

The ending was a disappointment for her connections and the many fans of her Cinderella story.

"Once you get past being thankful that everyone was OK, then just sort of the heartbreak, devastation part of it settles in," Corndorf said. "We're a small family operation. We don't have five, six runners in the Breeders' Cup every year that it is easy to just accept this and move on. This was a big deal for us. She is the best horse we've ever had and the best horse we probably ever will."

Starship Jubilee set the bar high. Claimed for $16,000 in February 2017 at Gulfstream Park, she would rise to bank more than $2 million in earnings by winning 12 stakes, including two grade 1s. Last year as a 6-year-old, the daughter of Indy Wind won the E. P. Taylor Stakes (G1T), and this year she beat males in the Ricoh Woodbine Mile Stakes (G1T).

Both of those wins came when owned by Blue Heaven Farm, a family operation headed by president Bonnie Baskin. Corndorf is her son.

Blue Heaven Farm acquired Starship Jubilee in a deal brokered by consignor Brookdale Sales after she fell short of her reserve at the 2018 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale when bidding halted at $425,000. She remained in training with Kevin Attard, who had owned her with Soli Mehta.

"It's been a great ride, a lot of great memories," Attard said. "I am happy she came along into my life. She's meant a lot to me, my family, my career. It's been a pleasure. I'm definitely going to miss her a lot."

Though Starship Jubilee had her richest year in 2020, winning five of seven races, all stakes, another Canadian championship is not in the cards. Horses must make three starts in Canada to become eligible for Sovereign Awards, and her Canadian schedule this year was limited by a spring racing shutdown from COVID-19 and then by two summer trips to Saratoga Race Course. There, she captured the Ballston Spa Stakes (G2T) and was fourth in the Diana Stakes (G1T).

Corndorf called her "the people's horse"—bred by Willam Sorren in Florida, primarily based at Woodbine in Toronto, and owned by a Kentucky horse farm.

"She gave people hope," he said. "It's not easy, but why not you? Why not me? Why not anybody? She was a special horse for the industry as a whole."

Starship Jubilee won 19 of 39 starts, topped by eight wins from 14 races over the final two years of her career. Now comes a mating with Medaglia d'Oro, who stands at Darley for $150,000. 

"We're hoping (her) competitiveness is genetic and that kind of will to win—that thing that you can't see in a sales horse that is just inside them—we hope that is something she can pass along," Corndorf said.