CAMELOT, last year's 2000 Guineas and dual Derby winner, has been retired, owners Coolmore have announced.
Trained by Aidan O'Brien, the four-year-old fell short of his best form this season, winning just one of his three starts. Camelot was being trained for the Breeders' Cup Turf next month but was found to be lame yesterday.
Unbeaten as a two-year-old, including a Group One win in the Racing Post Trophy, Camelot excelled at three.
Victory in the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket was followed by a smooth display in the Derby at Epsom before he had to show his courage to win the Irish equivalent.
The son of Montjeu then attempted to become the first horse since Nijinsky to win the Triple Crown but had to settle for a three-quarter-length second to Encke in the St Leger before finishing down the field in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. After that race he was struck down with a bad bout of colic and, while he returned with a Group Three win at the Curragh this season, he finished behind Al Kazeem in the Tattersalls Gold Cup and the Prince of Wales's Stakes at Royal Ascot and did not run again.
"From the very first time we saw him at the sales we just loved him," said trainer O'Brien. "He was the perfect racehorse, a beautiful horse with a terrific action. Speed, class and a super-intelligent horse to go with it - he had it all. Unfortunately we never saw the same brilliance on the racecourse as we had done before his colic operation, but he was showing signs of it at home in recent weeks so it's obviously disappointing that he won't get the opportunity to run again." Camelot will stand at Coolmore next season, with his fee yet to be announced.
Meanwhile, Cirrus Des Aigles is one of 15 horses still in contention for the Qipco Champion Stakes at Ascot on Saturday. Winner of the race in 2011 and second to the brilliant Frankel 12 months ago, Corine Barande-Barbe's pride and joy looked right back to his best when winning the Prix Dollar at Longchamp last time.
The seven-year-old will be a hot favourite to regain his Champion Stakes crown, especially with the forecast rain set to supply him with his favoured soft ground.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article