Retirement Considered for Kona Gold

(from Del Mar notes)
Trainer Bruce Headley said Sunday that he is considering retiring his 9-year-old warrior Kona Gold, winner of the 2000 Breeders' Cup Sprint (gr. I) and the Eclipse Award as America's finest sprinter that year.

After a fifth-place finish in the Bing Crosby (gr. II) Saturday, a race Kona Gold has won twice before, Headley said, "Father Time is starting to draw a finish line for him," then added with a smile, "for you and me, also."

Is retirement in the offing? "Well, I have to talk it over with my owners (wife Aase Headley and Irwin and Andrew Molasky). I don't want to keep running fourth or fifth. We'll contemplate for a while and then make our decision. He's done a lot for us, and I don't want to torture the fans, either."

If Saturday's race was, indeed, Kona Gold's last, it leaves him with a career record of 30 starts, 14 wins, seven seconds and two thirds and earnings of $2,293,384.