Shotgun Gulch sold to Rick Porter in a private deal, and the mare is to be bred to Bernardini
Owner/trainer and breeder, C. R. Trout revealed that he has sold his 5-year-old mare, Shotgun Gulch to Rick Porter of Fox Hill Farm privately on 6 March, 2012, as the 5-year-old Thunder Gulch mare retired last month because of an injury she incurred.
The Oklahoma bred mare will be bred to the leading sire Bernardini, when the Grade 1 winner will travel to Hot Springs Ark., to Taylor Made Farm in Lexington, Kentucky from Oaklawn Park.
The mare is out of mare Rosieville by Boston Harbor, and the biggest win of her career came in the Grade 1 Vinery Madison Stakes at Keeneland last April.
The win was a surprising one, because prior to it she turned in two back to back 5th place finishes, starting from the Spring Fever Stakes, run over a distance of five and a half furlongs at Oaklawn Park to winner Salty Wave, who covered the distance
in 1 minute and 3.75 seconds.
Next up she was scheduled to run in the 2011 edition of the Grade 3 Azeri Stakes, but it wasn’t going to be an easy task, because in a field containing the likes of Blind Luck and Havre de Grace, Shotgun Gulch always needed a miracle to romp past the two
to land the grade 3 event.
Against a start studded lineup at about 1 1/16 miles, Shotgun Gulch turned in another fifth place finish this time to winner Havre de Grace, who covered the distance in 1 minute and 42.02 seconds, as Blind Luck finished a close second on the day.
Shotgun Gulch in her juvenile season back in 2009, started off well as she bagged 3 races out of the 4 starts she made that year, including a maiden special weight win and two stakes races.
Lightly raced in her sophomore season, the mare represented her connections in only three races altogether, landing the Dixie Belle Stakes, finishing sixth in the Grade 3 Iowa Oaks, and finally capping off an early season in June, when she finished third
in the Grade 1 La Brea Stakes at Santa Anita.
The mare cracked a sesamoid in her left foreleg, when preparing for the Grade 3 Azeri Stakes this year, and C. R. Trout decided to retire the filly. Overall, Shotgun Gulch won 7 of 21 starts and amassed lifetime earnings of $528,976.
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