'I will miss him' - world-class stallion More Than Ready dies aged 25

More Than Ready, a foundation sire for WinStar Farm's burgeoning stallion operation and one of the most influential international sires of his era, was euthanised on Friday at the Central Kentucky farm due to the "cumulative effects of old age."

The 25-year-old son of Southern Halo out of the winning Woodman daughter Woodman's Girl is the rare stallion to achieve elite status in both the northern and southern hemispheres.

Out of an extraordinary 216 black-type stakes winners worldwide, 128 (6 per cent of named foals of racing age) found success in the northern hemisphere and seven were hailed as champions, and 90 (5 per cent) were successful in the southern hemisphere, with six honoured as champions.

"More Than Ready was an amazing horse who touched everyone he came in contact with," said Elliott Walden, president, CEO, and racing manager of WinStar Farm. "He may not have been the biggest horse in the barn, but he more than made up for it in class, balance, and character. His expressions said it all. We will greatly miss him at the farm."

His influence will be felt for generations as the most travelled shuttle stallion ever, having gone to Vinery Stud in Australia for 19 consecutive seasons from 2001-2019.

Peter Orton, general manager of Vinery Stud near Scone, Australia, which owned approximately 50 per cent of the stallion, described More Than Ready in an earlier interview with BloodHorse as an extraordinary traveller and the most easygoing stallion around the barn.

"Over all the years he has been travelling, we have never had an issue with him. We do, however, always have a groom who knows him traveling with him," he said. "But when he arrives at Vinery every year, he trots off the truck, has a brief look around, and settles into his stall. He then goes out to his paddock relaxed and like he has never been away."

Orton added that he believed regularly shuttling contributed to More Than Ready's longevity.

"The shuttle process is actually good for a stallion if they have the right attitude to handle the transit," he said. "The demise of a lot of stallions can be during the offseason. If not watched carefully, they can be left inactive for around eight months sometimes, becoming overweight easily, often resulting in feet issues such as laminitis and other related problems."

Tom Simon's Vinery in Central Kentucky launched More Than Ready's stallion career in 2001 with an initial fee of $25,000. When Simon announced he was closing his breeding and training operations in the United States in 2012, he arranged to have seven stallions - More Than Ready, Pioneerof the Nile, Kodiak Kowboy, Maimonides, Congrats, Pure Prize and Street Hero - relocated to WinStar.

"We agreed to take all of them to get More Than Ready," Walden told BloodHorse in an earlier interview. "More Than Ready was already a great stallion, and they are hard to come by. Anytime you can add one to your roster it is a bonus."

Laying the foundation for the stallion transitions was Walden's earlier connection to Simon through Grade 1 winner Brahms. Walden trained the son of Danzig, whom Simon later purchased to stand at stud. When Simon decided to close Vinery, he recommended to the stallions' shareholders that WinStar take over their management.

As a racehorse, More Than Ready showed both precociousness and toughness as a two-year-old. Racing for Jim Scatuorchio and trainer Todd Pletcher in 1999, he won at first asking by seven and a half lengths at Keeneland.

The colt would win his next four starts, all in black-type stakes that included the Tremont Stakes - in which he set a five and a half-furlong track record of 1:02.56 at Belmont Park - and the Sanford Stakes. He fell half a length short in the Futurity Stakes at Belmont, finishing third behind Bevo and Greenwood Lake, who were separated by a neck.

At three, More Than Ready ran second in the Louisiana Derby and second by a head in the Toyota Blue Grass Stakes before finishing a game fourth in the Kentucky Derby. The winner's circle remained elusive until the King's Bishop Stakes, in which he cut back to seven furlongs and finally captured a top-level event by a length and a half, with Pat Day in the irons for the first time. The first Grade 1-winning colt for Pletcher, he was retired in the autumn of 2000 with a 7-4-1 record out of 17 starts and earnings of $1,026,229.

At stud, he got off to an equally fast start. He finished among the top ten of the 2004 freshman sire class by progeny earnings, and as a second-crop sire co-ranked in second by number of 2005 stakes winners with 12 alongside leading sire Giant's Causeway. Both were behind Fusaichi Pegasus with 13.

More Than Ready sired his first Group 1 winner in Australia when his daughter Carry On Cutie won the Champagne Stakes at Randwick. Later that year, his son Benicio would win the Victoria Derby.

Uni: top-class daughter of More Than ReadyCredit: Edward Whitaker

In North America, More Than Ready sired two Breeders' Cup winners before he would see his first Grade 1 winner. More Than Real won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf and Pluck won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf in 2010.

Buster's Ready became More Than Ready's first northern hemisphere Grade 1 winner when she captured the 2011 Mother Goose Stakes. That year would be pivotal for More Than Ready, who got his second Grade 1 winner and third Breeders' Cup winner with Vinery homebred Regally Ready, who won the Nearctic Stakes at Woodbine and then captured the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint at Churchill Downs.

More Than Ready is the most successful sire in the Breeders' Cup with seven winners, which also include Roy H, who won the Breeders' Cup Sprint twice (2017-18) and is a two-time Eclipse champion sprinter; Uni, who won the 2019 Breeders' Cup Mile; and Rushing Fall, who won the 2017 Juvenile Fillies Turf.

The sire's career produced a number of extraordinary accomplishments. One of the youngest stallions in history to attain 100 stakes winners and 1,000 winners, More Than Ready was the leading North American sire of two-year-olds in 2010 and Australia's leading sire of two-year-olds in 2007-08 and again in 2008-09. He sired Graded/Group stakes winners in 12 countries, Grade/Group 1 winners in seven, and has more black type winners than any North American sire in history with 216.

Having racked up more than $219 million in worldwide progeny earnings, More Than Ready has sired 100 Graded/Group stakes winners and 26 internationally recognised Grade/Group 1 winners. He would be represented by 12 Grade 1 winners in the northern hemisphere and 14 Group 1 winners in the southern hemisphere.

More Than Ready is the only sire to have an Eclipse Award champion each year from 2017 to 2020. In addition to Roy H., Rushing Fall was named champion female turf horse in 2020, and Uni was honoured as the 2019 champion turf female.

"I have been around him since we got the horses from Vinery," Larry McGinnis, WinStar stallion manager told BloodHorse in an earlier interview. "You can count on him; he's money in the bank. His attitude never changed, and he always looks great. He really is unbelievable."

After the stallion's passing, McGinnis said: "To me, he was more than a great stallion, he was a great friend. It was an honour to take care of such a remarkable horse. I will miss him."

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