Wilkes reflects on time with Fort Larned

The return

to his longtime home at Churchill Downs was very brief for Fort Larned following

his strong fourth-place run behind victorious Mucho Macho Man in his bid for a second consecutive victory in the Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita

last Saturday.

Janice Whitham's five-year-old homebred arrived in Louisville, Kentucky,

late Sunday and settled briefly into his stall in the barn of trainer Ian

Wilkes. By midmorning on Monday, Fort Larned was on a van that carried him to a

new home at Adena Springs Farm near Lexington, Kentucky and his second career as a

stallion.

"I emailed Mrs. Whitham and said it was a sad day, but a

happy day," Wilkes recalled. "You never want to see it end with a good horse,

because they're hard to find. But then we were happy to see him leaving the barn

sound, happy and going to his new career. Now we'll just look forward to his

babies, and hopefully he'll do us proud in the breeding shed."

The departure of Fort Larned, who earned $4,471,322 while

winning 10 of 25 races, created a huge vacancy in Wilkes stable. The

end of his racing career was clearly a bittersweet moment for those close to

him, but Wilkes was proud of his star's final run in Saturday's memorable

Classic, a race in which Fort Larned set the pace under pressure before giving

way with just over a furlong to run.

"Look what Mucho Macho Man did when he went out there and

won the Awesome Again (at Santa Anita)," Wilkes asserted. "None of the West

Coast horses finished close to us."

Fort Larned made his bid for back-to-back wins in the

Classic following a hard-luck season during which Wilkes had to do considerable

ad-libbing to get his star back to Santa Anita. While the result was not what

Wilkes had hoped, he believes that Fort Larned's Classic run should have proved

to any remaining doubters that his 2012 Classic win and other Grade 1 victories

in the Saratoga's Whitney and Churchill Downs' Stephen Foster Handicap were true

indications of his horse's talent and ability.

"I think it validated a lot of things," Wilkes said. "His

Classic win was not a one-race performance. This year was a real roller-coaster

ride, but that's part of racing. He was a special horse."

While Fort Larned has moved on, Wilkes still has a talented

older horse in his care in the four-year-old Neck 'n Neck, who won the Indiana

Derby and Ack Ack Handicap at age three

before he went to the sidelines after being injured while training for last

year's Clark

Handicap.