Dual-surface Grade 1 winner Yoshida retired to WinStar Farm

Yoshida, a Grade 1 winner on dirt and turf, has been retired and will stand the forthcoming breeding season at WinStar Farm. He will stand for $20,000 with a stands and nurses guarantee.

Owned by WinStar Farm, China Horse Club and Head of Plains Partners, and trained by Bill Mott, Yoshida earned more than $2.5 million in a sensational racing career.

A versatile four-time stakes winner on dirt and turf, and hailing from the influential Halo line, Yoshida competed on three different continents and recorded five triple-digit Beyers over both surfaces - 108, 106, 105, 103, and 102.

"We're excited about his next chapter," said Elliott Walden, president, CEO and racing manager of WinStar Farm. "He's a horse who competed with the best of the best on both surfaces.

"He ran against Bricks And Mortar four times and beat him twice. When Tom Ryan and I bought him as a yearling, we envisioned him retiring to WinStar and bringing back the hallowed blood of Sunday Silence.

"He was Grade 1 class on both surfaces, and not many horses are able to do that."

Yoshida registered his biggest victories as a four-year-old in 2018, capturing both the Woodward Stakes Presented on dirt at Saratoga and the Old Forester Turf Classic at Churchill Downs.

He won the Woodward with an impressive fast-closing score over a deep and competitive field in his first start on dirt, earning a 102 Beyer speed figure, and ran a 106 Beyer in winning the Turf Classic in decisive fashion.

A game winner of the 2017 Hill Prince Stakes, defeating multiple Grade 1 winner Bricks And Mortar, Yoshida also finished a strong second in this year's Whitney Stakes to multiple Grade 1 winner McKinzie and finished ahead of eventual Breeders' Cup Classic winner Vino Rosso in the second-fastest Whitney since 1955.

At four, Yoshida travelled to Royal Ascot in 2018, where he was beaten just one and a quarter lengths in a field of 15 in the prestigious Queen Anne Stakes and he also contested this year's Dubai World Cup at Meydan.

He retires with a 5-4-1 record out of 18 starts and earned $2,505,770.

Bred in Japan by Katsumi Yoshida's Northern Farm, Yoshida is by Heart's Cry, one of the leading sires in Japan and a son of influential stallion and dual American Classic winner Sunday Silence, the greatest sire in Japanese history.

Heart's Cry is the sire of nine Grade 1 winners, two champions and the winners of 57 Graded stakes races worldwide with more than $243 million in progeny earnings.

Yoshida is the second foal produced from Hilda's Passion, who captured the 2011 Ballerina Stakes at Saratoga before selling for $1,225,000 at that year's Fasig-Tipton The November Sale.

Yoshida was purchased as a yearling for 94 million yen (US$765,160) at the 2015 JRHA Select Sale in Japan.

"Yoshida proved to be a versatile racehorse, winning prestigious Grade 1 races on dirt and turf," said Sean Tugel, director of bloodstock services and assistant racing manager at WinStar.

"He's out of a very fast Grade 1-winning mare and brings back the Sunday Silence/Halo blood to America through his sire Heart's Cry. He's an outstanding physical that possesses heart as a racehorse that everyone is looking to breed into their foals."

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