'It has been a brutal couple of days' - much-loved dual Grade 1 winner Art Collector succumbs to laminitis

Art Collector, four-and-a-half-length winner of the $3 million Pegasus World Cup in January, and of more than $4m in his career, sadly had to be put down on Thursday in Saratoga Springs due to laminitis. 

The story was first reported by Horse Racing Nation.

Bruce Lunsford, who owned and bred the son of Bernardini, who is in the upstate New York town with wife Eleanor said: "We got to spend a little time with him. It has been a brutal couple of days. Oh my God, I kind of knew last night we were walking uphill. This is the call you hope you never get."

Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott said the six-year-old had developed the painful condition in all four of his feet.

Art Collector had worked five furlongs earlier in the month as he prepared to run in the Grade 2 Charles Town Classic Stakes next Friday. Art Collector had won that race for the last two years.

"It happened fast, that is usually the way it happens," Mott said in the Saratoga paddock on Thursday. 

"The thing is, the best doctors and scientists in the world are studying what and why and what to do about it. Since I have been around horses, no-one has found the magic bullet.

"Sometimes, you know there is a cause. Stress or an infection or something like that. In this case, we don't know what brought it on."

Art Collector won 11 of 23 starts, also including the 2021 Grade 1 Woodford Stakes, and earned $4,231,290. His last start was the Alysheba Stakes at Churchill Downs, where he finished second.

In July 2021, Lunsford moved the horse from Kentucky-based trainer Tom Drury to Mott. Art Collector made 11 starts with Mott and had six wins.

"He won 50 per cent of his starts and it doesn't get much better than that," said Mott. "He ran a huge race when he won the Pegasus; he ran a lot of huge races. 

“This is not easy, but he was a good horse and everyone in the barn, the whole crew, really appreciated having him. It hits everybody when something like this happens to any of them, but especially one like him."

Lunsford said the Grade 1 Pegasus was his favourite memory he had with Art Collector. He also mentioned the victory in the 2020 Grade 2 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland as another personal favourite.

He said that after the Charles Town Classic, the plan was for Art Collector to be retired and then stand at stud at Claiborne Farm.

Lunsford said it was comforting to be with the horse in his final minutes and also important to have so many of the personnel from the Mott barn there. That included Mott himself, assistant Neal Poznansky, who also served as Art Collector's exercise rider and workout rider and longtime Mott employee Erma Scott, who was the horse's biggest fan.

"He gave me so many great thrills, I can't even tell you," said Lunsford. "He had a cool personality, very charismatic. It was sweet to have him. All of us, everyone out there, it was really a special day to talk about him and what he had done. 

“It really was everything you dream of to have a horse that you really loved."