Multiple graded stakes winner Gottcha Gold will retire to Michael O’Farrell’s Ocala Stud for the 2009 breeding season, it was announced Nov.19.
A Centaur Farms homebred, Gottcha Gold (Coronado's Quest--Gotcha Last, by Pleasant Tap) burst onto the national racing scene in 2007 with impressive wins in the Salvator Mile Handicap (gr. III) and Iselin Breeders’ Cup Handicap (gr. III) at Monmouth Park.
In the Salvator Mile, he defeated eventual champion older male Lawyer Ron, carving out all the fractions and stopping the clock in 1:34 1/5. The performance earned him a 108 Beyer and stamped Gottcha Gold as a leading miler in 2007.
Later in the season, Gottcha Gold was runner-up to Corinthian in the inaugural $1-million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Monmouth, outrunning a cast of graded stakes winners including Discreet Cat.
In 2008, Gottcha Gold won the Skip Away Handicap (gr. III) by 3 1/4 lengths at Gulfstream Park and was a narrow second in the Pimlico Special (gr. I) after setting the early pace.
The 5-year-old owns five career wins and is just shy of a million in earnings with $928,820. He was first or second in five stakes at or around a mile.
“The last two stallions we had to run a mile in 1:34 1/5 or faster were Montbrookand Notebook,” said O’Farrell, who was excited about Gottcha Gold’s return to Ocala Stud, where the horse was raised and trained prior to racing. “Between them to date, Montbrook and Notebook have sired 89 stakes winners, a couple of dozen which were graded.”
