Forever Together, who was voted the 2008 champion turf female after winning the Emirates Airline Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf (gr. IT), has been retired from racing to become a broodmare for owner George Strawbridge Jr.
The 6-year-old daughter of Belong to Me is boarded at Arthur B. Hancock III’s Stone Farm near Paris, Ky., and will be bred to Smart Strike. When bred to Belong to Me mares, Smart Strike has sired this year’s leading 3-year-old male Lookin At Lucky and 2010 grade II winner Papa Clem.
Campaigned by Strawbridge’s Augustin Stable and trained by Jonathan Sheppard, Forever Together was a two-time stakes winner on the dirt before she embarked on a career on the grass. She won her first three races, including the Forward Gal Stakes (gr. II), and then was beaten a neck in the Stonerside Beaumont Stakes (gr. II). After losing her next four starts, she was switched to the turf and promptly won the Reluctant Guest Stakes the year of her championship. Forever Together also captured the First Lady Stakes (gr. IT) and the first of two consecutive runnings of the Diana Stakes (gr. IT) leading up to her victory in the Filly & Mare Turf.
Forever Together went winless in six starts this year but managed to place in four graded stakes. She finished sixth in this year’s Filly & Mare Turf but was beaten just two lengths. She was retired with nine wins and a dozen placings from 26 starts and earnings of $2,957,639.
White Fox Farm is the breeder of Kentucky-bred Forever Together, whose dam, Constant Companion (by Relaunch), is a half sister to four stakes winners and three stakes producers, including the dam of grade II winner and successful sire Broken Vow .