Multiple Grade 1 Winner Mind Your Biscuits Retired

Multiple grade/group 1 winner Mind Your Biscuits, the richest New York-bred in history, was officially retired by trainer and co-owner Chad Summers the morning of Nov. 14 and will head to Japan in January where he will stand the 2019 season at Shadai Farm.

Summers was contemplating giving the 5-year-old son of Posse one more start in the wake of his 11th-place finish in the Nov. 3 Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) at Churchill Downs, with the Dec. 1 Cigar Mile Handicap (G1) at Aqueduct Racetrack and Nov. 23 Clark Handicap presented by Norton Healthcare (G1) beneath the Twin Spires among the spots being considered. In his first gallop since that Classic outing, however, Mind Your Biscuits didn't show the same level of enthusiasm Summers has come to expect from the chestnut horse.

"To run in those kind of races, you have to be doing well," Summers said. "Last year when we came out of the Breeders' Cup, he came out of it well, and we were able to progress forward. This time, he was jogging OK, and today was supposed to be his first gallop, just a routine gallop into a breeze tomorrow, and he just didn't show the same energy we're used to seeing from him.

"Just knowing him the way we know him, he doesn't owe us anything. For me, selfishly, I'd love to kind of make up for the Breeders' Cup Classic. I hate that to be his last race. But I'm not going to push him into a race if he's not 100%."

The decision to start Mind Your Biscuits in the 10-furlong Classic was a bold one by his connections as they attempted to expand his résumé beyond that of a top-level sprinter.

He had already stamped himself as one of the world's best in the shorter-distance ranks, capturing the 2016 Malibu Stakes (G1) and going on to earn back-to-back wins in the 2017-18 Dubai Golden Shaheen Sponsored By Gulf News (G1). Summers was confident Mind Your Biscuits' closing kick could stand up around two turns, and he made that the objective for his charge over the second half of the 2018 season.

After posting a runner-up finish behind Diversify in the Aug. 4 Whitney Stakes (G1) going 1 1/8 miles, Mind Your Biscuits scored his first win over a route of ground when he took the nine-furlong Lukas Classic Stakes (G3) at Churchill Sept. 29. In the Breeders' Cup Classic, however, he rated along in eighth and ninth down the backstretch and never got running from there—an effort Summers believes may have been because of an adverse reaction to the anti-bleeder medication Lasix.

"I don't think (his Classic result) had anything to do with the distance. He stopped running after five furlongs," Summers said. "The only thing we can come up with is maybe he had a bad reaction to the Lasix. He kind of got dull after he got the Lasix. He was sluggish leaving the gate, never picked up the bridle. He came back to the barn after the race and drank 2 1/2 buckets of water and was blowing for 45 minutes like he had run a marathon.

"We pulled blood on him a couple days later, and it came back that he was dehydrated. They went over him head to toe, my vets in Kentucky and New York, and no one can find a pimple on him physically. So the only thing we can come up with is he had a reaction to the Lasix. It's happened before … but it's not often something that happens to a horse that's gotten it 30 times like he has. But that's the only explanation we can come up with because he was training so good coming into the race. Never had he been training well and had that as a result."

The sting of the Classic loss cut deep for Summers. It was not the lasting image he wanted the racing community to have of the horse who transformed his personal and professional life.

Summers, along with his father and brother, purchased the colt privately when he failed to meet his reserve at the 2015 Ocala Breeders' Sales April 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale, and after initially putting him with trainer Roderick Rodriguez and then Robert Falcone Jr. (who saddled him to victory in the 2016 Malibu Stakes), Summers took out his own training license early in 2017 and began conditioning the colt himself.

Mind Your Biscuits rewarded Summers by giving him his first graded stakes win and first top-level win as a trainer when he overcame the far outside post to win his first Dubai Golden Shaheen. In this year's edition of that race, he looked hopelessly beaten with 200 meters to go but put in a tremendous rally to defeat X Y Jet by a head, with champion Roy H third.

"I'm just so thankful for the opportunity to work with him, and he's taught me so much over the last four years," Summers said. "It's been an unbelievable journey to be on with my family and my staff and as the partnership continued to grow and grow. As he grew in the New York-bred ranks, it kind of felt like we were representing all of New York state as well. We're so thankful for all the fans who came out to support him—win, lose, or draw. He became a really, really popular horse the last couple of years."

Owned by Summers and his family in partnership with Shadai Farm, J Stables, Head of Plains Partners, and Michael E. Kisber, Mind Your Biscuits was retired with eight wins and 10 runner-up efforts from 25 starts and $4,279,566 in earnings. He was bred in New York by Jumping Jack Racing out of the Toccet mare Jazzmane.

Summers said Mind Your Biscuits will head to Darby Dan Farm in Lexington to quarantine before shipping Jan. 8 to Japan .

"He had 23 good (races), one OK one, and one not so good," Summers said. "He always showed up. I'm a fan first, and, as a fan, it was like, 'What are we going to see from him today?' He never seemed to disappoint us. That's why the Breeders' Cup Classic hurt so much. Hopefully, the 23 good ones outweigh the others."