Champion Smuggler retired

SMUGGLER (Unbridled), last year's champion three-year-old filly, has been retired, trainer Shug McGaughey told the Daily Racing Form. The bay developed bruising in a hind cannon bone and would not have been able to return to action in any of the major fall prizes. The Ogden Mills Phipps homebred will begin her new career as a broodmare next spring, paying her first visit to the court of Awesome Again.

Produced by 1995 champion older mare Inside Information (Private Account), Smuggler was stakes-placed at two but blossomed at three. After a strong runner-up effort in the Acorn S. (G1), she scored her first stakes win in the Mother Goose S. (G1) and powered home by 3 1/2 lengths in the Coaching Club American Oaks (G1). A fever interrupted her training thereafter, eventually forcing her to the sidelines for the remainder of the season. Smuggler's golden summer at Belmont Park, however, had already sealed championship honors.

The Phipps colorbearer opened her four-year-old campaign in the April 22 Bed o' Roses Breeders Cup H. (G2) at Aqueduct, checking in fifth in a five-horse field. She then wound up a distant third in the May 21 Shuvee H. (G2) at Belmont in what turned out to be her final career start.

Smuggler ends her career with a mark of 9-5-2-1 and $654,352 in earnings.

"I wish we could've done a little more this year," McGaughey told the DRF. "I'm disappointed to see she's gone. We never got to see the best of her."