Lady Buttons to enjoy quieter life after racing retirement confirmed for good

The popular Lady Buttons will not race again following a brief return to the training ranks after earlier this year being found to have a condition which prevents her from conceiving and carrying a foal.

Jayne Sivills' daughter of Beneficial was found to have had 'very underdeveloped ovaries' having been sent to Coolmore to be covered by Walk In The Park after being retired from racing having finished seventh in last year's Mares' Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival.

With the door to a broodmare career slammed shut, Sivills and husband Keith opted to send her back into training with Phil Kirby, with the thought that she might reappear at Wetherby in November, albeit on the proviso she was showing enough at home to justify that.

Speaking to Racing Post bloodstock's Tom Peacock in the summer, Sivills said: "If six weeks down the line Phil says she's not the horse that she was, that’ll be it and a line will be drawn. Even if she gets to her first race and isn’t up to the standard, she won’t be pushed into doing something she doesn't want to do. She’s too precious to do that.

"She’s normally come back in July and been doing gentle work, so it would be a similar sort of route to what we'd do before. We’d always aimed for Wetherby in early November, that’s probably where we'd go if everything goes well."

The homebred 11-year-old, who won 15 of her 33 starts, including two Yorkshire Rose Mares' Hurdles and two Yorkshire Silver Vase Mares' Chases, will now enjoy a quieter life as a riding horse at Kirby's Green Oaks Farm yard in North Yorkshire.

Lady Buttons team 'absolutely gutted' after learning she cannot have a foal

Tom Peacock visits Lady Buttons at home (members)

In a Facebook post, Sivills revealed: "A lot of you have been asking us about LB. We have made the decision that she will not race again.

"She is still ours and she will remain at Phil’s, and Izzy Kirby is going to take her on the next journey, I’m sure I will be having a ride on her soon and my grandchildren are looking forward to being able to ride her too.

"She is only hanging her racing shoes up, and we look forward to seeing her and Izzy next year."

Lady Buttons is the first foal out of the unraced High Chaparral mare Lady Chapp, a close relation to Grade 2 novice hurdle winner Royal Alphabet and the Listed-placed hurdlers Queen Alphabet and Appy Days.

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