Azeri Retired From Breeding in Japan

Northern Farm in Japan has pensioned U.S. Horse of the Year and multiple graded stakes producer Azeri as a broodmare.

The 23-year-old daughter of Jade Hunter has a new job as a "lead horse" at the farm, where she is put out among recently weaned foals to help them during their transition, according to a video released Dec. 30 by Northern Horse Park and first reported by Daily Racing Form.

The video, promoted as showing the "Secret Life of Lead Horses," highlights Azeri along with other pensioners Biwa Heidi, a stakes winner and dam of grade 1 winners Buena Vista and Joie de Vivre, and To the Victory, a stakes winner and multiple graded stakes producer.

"Azeri is strong and tough, teaching the weanlings social skills," the video explains.

Azeri was bred by the late Allen Paulson and raced under the name of the Allen E. Paulson Living Trust with trainer Laura De Seroux. The gritty chestnut did not start racing until she was 3 but easily won her only two starts as a sophomore. At 4, she graduated quickly to graded stakes competition and strung together seven consecutive graded stakes victories in 2002—five at the grade 1 level—that culminated with a wire-to-wire romp by five lengths in the Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1) at Arlington International Racecourse. She earned championship honors that year as Horse of the Year and champion older mare.

The mare out of Australian group winner Zodiac Miss came back at 5 and won consecutive runnings of the Apple Blossom Handicap (G1), Milady Breeders' Cup Handicap (G1), Vanity Handicap (G1), and Clement L. Hirsch Handicap (G2). At 6, when trained by D. Wayne Lukas, she won her third consecutive Apple Blossom Handicap (G1) and added victories in the Go for Wand Handicap (G1) and Overbrook Spinster Stakes (G1) to her résumé. She took on males in the 2004 Breeders' Cup Classic Powered by Dodge (G1) where she finished a respectable fifth behind Ghostzapper , who set a track and stakes record at Lone Star Park. She retired with a 17-4-0 record from 24 starts and earned $4,079,820.

As a broodmare, Azeri produced her first three foals for the Allen E. Paulson Living Trust, which included grade 1-placed, grade 2 winner Wine Princess, and grade 2-placed winner Arienza.

Azeri was offered at the 2009 Keeneland January Horse of All Ages Sale where she was bought back on a final bid of $4.4 million. Hill 'n' Dale Sales Agency would offer her again later that year at the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale, where she was sold to Katsumi Yoshida for $2.25 million.

For Northern Farm, Azeri produced grade 2-placed winners Leukerbad and Shirvanshah along with four other winners. The mare produced nine winners from nine starters, which included four foals that sold in Japan as weanlings or yearlings for a combined US$7,104,911. As racehorses, Azeri's progeny collectively earned US$3,543,240 in purses.