He returned to the races in June of his 3-year-old year, impressively winning an allowance race at Belmont by 3 3/4 lengths. While preparing for the Dwyer Stakes (gr. I), he was found to have a saucer fracture in his right foreleg. Once put back in training for a return at four, Meadowlake developed a quarter crack and was retired.Meadowlake stood his first season at Carrion's The Oaks near Ocala, Fla., and then was moved to Mark Warner's Warnerton Farm, also near Ocala, where he stood two seasons. He began standing at Darby Dan in 1991.
Meadowlake, the sire of 54 stakes winners including champion Meadow Star, died Nov. 5 at Darby Dan Farm near Lexington. The 22-year-old son of Hold Your Peace died of a ruptured small intestine."He didn't colic, his small intestine tore," John Phillips of Darby Dan Farm said. "He was a tough horse but a great horse to stand at stud. He was the last tie to the industry for the Robertsons, who raced him and owned most of him. Though the family doesn't have any other horses anymore, Wilhelmina (Robertson) would still come to visit him."(Her husband, Corbin Robertson, died in 1991.)Meadowlake's first crop included Meadow Star, who won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (gr. I) and was named champion 2-year-old filly. Among his other stakes winners were Champagne Stakes (gr. I) winner Greenwood Lake and Pennsylvania Derby (gr. II) winner Meadow Flight. He is represented by five stakes winners in 2005, and is the broodmare sire of another 10, including graded stakes winner Henny Hughes, who ran second in the recent Bessemer Trust Breeders' Cup Juvenile (gr. I). In all, he is the broodmare sire of 31 stakes winners.Out of the Raise a Native mare Suspicious Native, Meadowlake was bred in Florida by Jaime Carrion and sold for him as agent at the 1984 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July sale by Bob Courtney. He was purchased by Corbin Robertson's Saron Stable for $185,000.Trained by Bert Sonnier, Meadowlake turned quite a few heads when he broke his maiden at Hawthorne by 22 lengths. Less than three weeks later he became a grade I winner when he took the Arlington-Washington Futurity by 8 3/4 lengths. Bucked shins sent him to the sidelines, and after being put back in training, he suffered an infection in the frogs of his feet.
