Champion, Sire Boston Harbor Dies in Japan at 27

American champion and longtime sire in Japan Boston Harbor passed away from old age March 9, according to Shigeki Yusa, stallion affairs manager for Japan Bloodhorse Breeders Association.

"We are truly saddened to lose him and are grateful for all the support from his fans over the years," Yusa posted on Twitter March 11 about the 27-year-old son of Capote out of the Vice Regent stakes winner Harbor Springs.

Boston Harbor passed away from old age on March 9. We are truly saddened to lose him and are grateful for all the support from his fans over the years. pic.twitter.com/vRKoaU20Hu

— shigeki yusa (@yusas) March 11, 2021

Bred and raced by W.T. Young's Overbrook Farm with trainer D. Wayne Lukas, Boston Harbor was a brilliant 2-year-old. He won six of seven starts as a juvenile, winning his debut May 25 at Churchill Downs. He became a graded stakes winner in his second start after capturing the Bashford Manor Stakes (G3) and then suffered his only loss of the year in the Sanford Stakes (G3) to Hobeau Farm homebred Kelly Kip, trained by Allen Jerkens, on a muddy Saratoga Race Course track. Boston Harbor would not lose again that year, stringing together four consecutive stakes victories that included the Breeders' Futurity (G2) at Keeneland and the Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1) at Woodbine.

Mirroring Capote's racing career, Boston Harbor's Breeders' Cup Juvenile victory locked up champion 2-year-old male honors for 1996.

At 3, Boston Harbor made one lackluster start resulting in a fourth in the Santa Catalina Stakes. Nearly three weeks later he fractured a cannon bone during a morning work but fortunately recovered to enter stud at Overbrook in 1998 with a $25,000 stud fee.

Boston Harbor's stud career did not start in blazing fashion, he ranked 14th on the 2001 freshman sire list, so before the end of 2001 he'd been sold to the JBBA. He would fashion a useful stud career in Japan with 90% of his foals making it to the races and 63% becoming winners. The best of his elite runners, however, would come from his first four U.S.-bred crops. They included grade 1 winner and four-time graded stakes winner Healthy Addiction, grade 2 winners Boston Common and My Boston Gal, and grade 3 winners Boston Bull and Mauk Four.

From 18 crops of racing age, Boston Harbor sired 20 (3%) black-type winners and 15 black-type-placed performers. Because of rich Japanese purses, his total progeny earnings exceeded $54.7 million.

Boston Harbor seems destined to leave his mark on the breed as a broodmare sire. His daughters have already produced 35 (3%) black-type winners and 40 black-type-placed runners that have earned more than $72.2 million. Boston Harbor is represented by 11 graded/group winners as a broodmare sire that include North American grade 1 winners Off the Tracks, My Sweet Addiction, and Shotgun Gulch, along with graded stakes winners Sealy Hill (who was a three-time Canadian champion and Horse of the Year in 2007), Concord Point, and Eddie Haskell. Wood Memorial Stakes (G1) runner-up Normandy Invasion is also out of a Boston Harbor daughter.

Boston Harbor's last crop of two foals was born in 2016. He still has two runners that made starts this year.