Starry Dreamer Dies From Infirmities of OId Age
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Photo: Four Footed Fotos
Starry Dreamer wins the 1997 Regret Stakes at Churchill Downs
Multiple stakes winner Starry Dreamer, best known as the dam of international leading sire War Front , died Aug. 7 from infirmities of old age at Claiborne Farm. She was 24.
Bred in Kentucky by Charles Nuckols Jr. & Sons, Starry Dreamer was a member of champion sprinter Rubiano's first crop. She began her career racing for the Russell Reineman Stable, and she became her sire's first stakes winner when she took the 1996 Gold Digger Stakes at Hawthorne Racecourse.
In April of 1997 Starry Dreamer was purchased privately by owner/breeder Joseph Allen and won the Palisades Stakes at Keeneland and the Regret Stakes at Churchill Downs in her first two starts for her new owner.
Starry Dreamer ran for two more years and repeatedly placed in graded stakes company, including the 1997 Gazelle Handicap (G1). She won six of her 31 starts and finished second or third in 15 others for earnings of $564,789.
Retired to Claiborne Farm, Starry Dreamer instantly made her mark as a broodmare. Her first three foals were all graded stakes winners: Ecclesiastic (Pulpit), War Front (Danzig), and Teammate (A.P. Indy). Additionally, her sons Riviera Cocktail and Jay Gatsby, full brothers by Giant's Causeway , were multiple graded stakes-placed runners. Starry Dreamer's final foal is an unraced 2-year-old colt by Medaglia d'Oro named North Dakota.
With War Front, Starry Dreamer left her mark on the breed, as he has sired 40 group or graded stakes winners.
Starry Dreamer will be buried in Claiborne Farm's Marchmont cemetery.