Champion Big Blue Kitten Retired

Champion Big Blue Kitten, a fixture in trainer Chad Brown's barn since his 2-year-old season, has been retired.

The outstanding turf male of 2015, Big Blue Kitten raced to a 14-8-5 record from 33 starts for earnings of $2,983,350 in six seasons of racing. He won seven stakes races, six graded, including four grade I events. The homebred son of Kitten's Joy ran for Ken and Sarah Ramsey, until the end of his championship season, during which he was acquired by Calumet Farm. He made three starts for Calumet in 2016, and will stand at the Lexington operation.

"We have had Big Blue Kitten in our barn since he was a 2-year-old and we are all sad to see him go," Brown said. "He is and always will be one of my personal favorites based on the consistency and heart he showed at the highest level."

In 2015 Big Blue Kitten won three of his six starts, and never finished worse than third while racing almost exclusively in grade I races. He won his Eclipse Award at age 7, a testament to the patience and perseverance of his team.

Big Blue Kitten broke his maiden in 2011 for a $35,000 claiming tag and went on a five-race winning streak capped by his first graded stakes score in the 2011 National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame Stakes (gr. IIT). His next graded wins came in 2013 at the highest level, when he won the United Nations (gr. IT) and Sword Dancer Invitational (gr. IT) back-to-back. He won the Fort Marcy (gr. IIIT) in 2015 and was second in the Knob Creek Manhattan Stakes (gr. IT) behind Slumber, then got the best of that rival with a sharp 1 1/2-length repeat victory in the United Nations.

The Ramseys and Brown shipped Big Blue Kitten to Chicago for the Arlington Million XXXIII Stakes (gr. IT), where the bay runner valiantly tried to catch The Pizza Man in the stretch but lost by just a neck. Back at Belmont, he turned in his finest performance of the year in the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Stakes (gr. IT), setting a course record of 2:23.39 for 1 1/2 miles while holding off Slumber and fellow grade I winner Twilight Eclipse.

Big Blue Kitten finished the year in the Longines Breeders' Cup Turf (gr. IT), running the best of the Americans when third to Europeans Found and Golden Horn. He never found the winner's circle racing for Calumet, and his connections retire him off a quiet finish last of eight in the Sept. 17 Northern Dancer Turf Stakes (Can-IT) at Woodbine.

Big Blue Kitten was bred in Kentucky out of the Unaccounted For mare Spent Gold, and is the only graded stakes winner out of his dam to date.

"I am so grateful he is entering his stud career at Calumet Farm, where I know he is in great hands. I look forward to training his offspring," Brown said.