Meadow Star
Encyclopedia
Meadow Star was an American
Thoroughbred
Champion
racehorse
Breeders' Cup Inc.
calls "one of the greatest 2-year-old fillies ever."
Foaled in Florida
, Meadow Star was bred by Jaime Carrion at his The Oaks farm in Ocala
. Sired by the American Grade I
winner Meadowlake, and out of the mare
Inreality Star, she was sold at the 1989 Keeneland yearling sale
for $90,000. Her buyer, prominent Wall Street
investor Carl Icahn
, handed her over to trainer
LeRoy Jolley
for race conditioning.
Belmont Park
. She went on to win four straight graded stakes races. In her last outing before the Breeders' Cup
, she won the Frizette Stakes
by fourteen lengths. Shortly thereafter, Icahn announced that he would donate all of Meadow Star's future earnings to the Children's Rescue Fund, a charity he had founded to help homeless children.
Ridden by Jose Santos, Meadow Star was the overwhelming betting
favorite for the 1990 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies
. Bet down to 1:5 odds, she was the heaviest favorite in the history of the Breeders Cup races. Lite Light
, owned by Rap music
star MC Hammer
, was a distant second choice at 9:1. Meadow Star did not disappoint her supporters, winning by five lengths over runner-up Private Treasure. She defeated the future Hall of Fame filly Dance Smartly
, who finished third, as well as future two-time American Champion Female Turf Horse and Hall of Fame inductee Flawlessly.
Meadow Star's undefeated 1990 season made her the runaway winner of the Eclipse Award
for American Champion Two-Year-Old Filly.
. Following this loss, her handlers decided not to enter her in the Kentucky Derby
. After a two-month layoff, she came back to compete in the then version of New York's Triple Tiara
series for fillies. She began with a six-length win in the Acorn Stakes
, then ran in the 1⅛ mile Mother Goose Stakes
. In this race, she faced Lite Light, whom she had easily beaten in the previous fall's Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies but who at age three was a vastly improved filly. After the two ran head-to-head from the turn at the top of the homstretch, Meadow Star won by a "lip" in a photo finish that took the officials six minutes to adjudicate. The two fillies finished 15 ½ lengths in front of the rest of the field. A month later, they met again in the final leg of the Triple Tiara, the 1¼ mile Coaching Club American Oaks
. Once again they pulled away from the field, going head-to-head at the top of the stretch. But this time the extra ⅛ mile was too much for Meadow Star, while Lite Light put on a powerful drive and won by seven lengths in stakes record time.
After her loss in the Coaching Club American Oaks, Meadow Star was rested until early September, but in her return finished fourth in the one mile Maskette Stakes
. She did not race again until April 24, 1992, and after a season that saw her go winless in five starts with two third-place finishes her best showings, she was retired to broodmare service at Trackside Farm near Versailles, Kentucky
.
As a broodmare, Meadow Star produced three foals from Deputy Minister
and one each from Gulch
and A.P. Indy
. In 2002, she suffered complications giving birth to a foal by Fusaichi Pegasus
and died at the Hagyard Equine Medical Institute equine hospital. She is buried at Trackside Farm.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Thoroughbred
Thoroughbred
The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word thoroughbred is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed...
Champion
Eclipse Award
The Eclipse Award is an American thoroughbred horse racing award named after the 18th century British racehorse and sire, Eclipse. The Eclipse Awards, honoring the champions of the sport, are sponsored by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association , Daily Racing Form and the National Turf Writers...
racehorse
Horse racing
Horse racing is an equestrian sport that has a long history. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in ancient Babylon, Syria, and Egypt. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC...
Breeders' Cup Inc.
Breeders' Cup
The Breeders' Cup World Championships is an annual series of Thoroughbred horse races, most but not all Grade I, operated by Breeders' Cup Limited, a company formed in 1982. From its inception in 1984 through 2006, it was a single-day event; starting in 2007, it expanded to two days. The location...
calls "one of the greatest 2-year-old fillies ever."
Foaled in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, Meadow Star was bred by Jaime Carrion at his The Oaks farm in Ocala
Ocala, Florida
Ocala is a city in Marion County, Florida. As of 2007, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau was 53,491. It is the county seat of Marion County, and the principal city of the Ocala, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had an estimated 2007 population of 324,857.-History:Ocala...
. Sired by the American Grade I
Graded stakes race
A graded stakes race is a term applied since 1973 by the American Graded Stakes Committee of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association to thoroughbred horse races in the United States and Canada to describe races that derive their name from the stake, or entry fee, owners must pay...
winner Meadowlake, and out of the mare
Mare (horse)
A mare is an adult female horse or other equine.In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse age three and younger. However, in Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more than four years old; in harness racing a mare is a...
Inreality Star, she was sold at the 1989 Keeneland yearling sale
Keeneland Sales
The Keeneland Sales is an American Thoroughbred auction house in Lexington, Kentucky founded in 1935 as a nonprofit racing/auction entity on 147 acres of farmland west of Lexington, which had been owned by Jack O. Keene...
for $90,000. Her buyer, prominent Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
investor Carl Icahn
Carl Icahn
Carl Celian Icahn is an American business magnate and investor.-Biography:Icahn was raised in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York City, where he attended Far Rockaway High School. His father was a cantor, his mother was a schoolteacher...
, handed her over to trainer
Horse trainer
In horse racing, a trainer prepares a horse for races, with responsibility for exercising it, getting it race-ready and determining which races it should enter...
LeRoy Jolley
LeRoy Jolley
LeRoy Jolley is an United States Hall of Fame Thoroughbred horse trainer. The son of horse trainer Moody Jolley, LeRoy Jolley has been around horses all his life at age nineteen received a New York State trainer's license....
for race conditioning.
Racing at age two
Meadow Star made a successful racing debut on June 13, 1990, winning an allowance race at New York'sElmont, New York
Elmont is an unincorporated census-designated place located in the northwest corner of the Town of Hempstead in Nassau County, New York, along its border with the borough of Queens in New York City...
Belmont Park
Belmont Park
Belmont Park is a major thoroughbred horse-racing facility located in Elmont in the Town of Hempstead in Nassau County, New York, on Long Island adjoining New York City. It first opened on May 4, 1905...
. She went on to win four straight graded stakes races. In her last outing before the Breeders' Cup
Breeders' Cup
The Breeders' Cup World Championships is an annual series of Thoroughbred horse races, most but not all Grade I, operated by Breeders' Cup Limited, a company formed in 1982. From its inception in 1984 through 2006, it was a single-day event; starting in 2007, it expanded to two days. The location...
, she won the Frizette Stakes
Frizette Stakes
The Frizette Stakes is an American Thoroughbred horse race for two-year-old fillies raced annually at Belmont Park in the late fall. It is currently a Grade I stakes race at as distance of one mile. The Frizette is the female counterpart of the Champagne Stakes.The race is currently part of the...
by fourteen lengths. Shortly thereafter, Icahn announced that he would donate all of Meadow Star's future earnings to the Children's Rescue Fund, a charity he had founded to help homeless children.
Ridden by Jose Santos, Meadow Star was the overwhelming betting
Parimutuel betting
Parimutuel betting is a betting system in which all bets of a particular type are placed together in a pool; taxes and the "house-take" or "vig" is removed, and payoff odds are calculated by sharing the pool among all winning bets...
favorite for the 1990 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies
Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies
The Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies is a 1 1/16-mile thoroughbred horse race on dirt for two-year-old fillies run annually since 1984 at a different racetrack in the United States or Canada as part of the Breeders' Cup World Championships.-Automatic Berths:Beginning in 2007, the Breeders' Cup...
. Bet down to 1:5 odds, she was the heaviest favorite in the history of the Breeders Cup races. Lite Light
Lite Light
Lite Light was an American Thoroughbred racehorse. A daughter of Hall of Famer Majestic Prince, Lite Light counts Nearco and Princequillo among her ancestors. She was owned by Jack L. Finley at age two and into the early phases of her three-year-old campaign before being purchased by rap music...
, owned by Rap music
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
star MC Hammer
MC Hammer
Stanley Kirk Burrell , better known by his stage name MC Hammer , is an American rapper, entertainer, business entrepreneur, dancer and actor. He had his greatest commercial success and popularity from the late 1980s until the mid-1990s...
, was a distant second choice at 9:1. Meadow Star did not disappoint her supporters, winning by five lengths over runner-up Private Treasure. She defeated the future Hall of Fame filly Dance Smartly
Dance Smartly
Dance Smartly was a Champion Thoroughbred Canadian and U.S. Hall of Fame racemare who went undefeated in 1991 while winning the Canadian Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing and becoming the first horse bred in Canada to ever win a Breeders' Cup race.Bred in Ontario by Sam-Son Farm, the bay mare...
, who finished third, as well as future two-time American Champion Female Turf Horse and Hall of Fame inductee Flawlessly.
Meadow Star's undefeated 1990 season made her the runaway winner of the Eclipse Award
Eclipse Award
The Eclipse Award is an American thoroughbred horse racing award named after the 18th century British racehorse and sire, Eclipse. The Eclipse Awards, honoring the champions of the sport, are sponsored by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association , Daily Racing Form and the National Turf Writers...
for American Champion Two-Year-Old Filly.
Racing at age three
As a three-year-old, Meadow Star won her first two races of 1991. Then, up against males for the first time, she finished a well-beaten fourth in the Wood Memorial StakesWood Memorial Stakes
The Wood Memorial Stakes is an American flat Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-olds held annually at Aqueduct Racetrack in Jamaica, New York. It is currently a Grade I race run over a distance of 9 furlongs on dirt....
. Following this loss, her handlers decided not to enter her in the Kentucky Derby
Kentucky Derby
The Kentucky Derby is a Grade I stakes race for three-year-old Thoroughbred horses, held annually in Louisville, Kentucky, United States on the first Saturday in May, capping the two-week-long Kentucky Derby Festival. The race is one and a quarter mile at Churchill Downs. Colts and geldings carry...
. After a two-month layoff, she came back to compete in the then version of New York's Triple Tiara
Triple Tiara of Thoroughbred Racing
The Triple Tiara of Thoroughbred Racing, formerly known as the Filly Triple Crown, is a set of three horse races in the United States which is open to three year old fillies...
series for fillies. She began with a six-length win in the Acorn Stakes
Acorn Stakes
The Acorn Stakes is an American Grade I race at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York for three-year-old Thoroughbred fillies. It is raced on dirt over a distance of one mile with a current purse of $250,000. It is the first leg of the US Triple Tiara and is followed by the Coaching Club American Oaks...
, then ran in the 1⅛ mile Mother Goose Stakes
Mother Goose Stakes
The Mother Goose Stakes is an American thoroughbred horse race for three-year-old fillies held at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York. Raced on dirt, the Grade I race offers a purse of $250,000. Inaugurated in 1957 at a mile and a sixteenth, it was lengthened to a mile and an eighth in 1959...
. In this race, she faced Lite Light, whom she had easily beaten in the previous fall's Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies but who at age three was a vastly improved filly. After the two ran head-to-head from the turn at the top of the homstretch, Meadow Star won by a "lip" in a photo finish that took the officials six minutes to adjudicate. The two fillies finished 15 ½ lengths in front of the rest of the field. A month later, they met again in the final leg of the Triple Tiara, the 1¼ mile Coaching Club American Oaks
Coaching Club American Oaks
The Coaching Club American Oaks is a race for thoroughbred three-year old fillies and the second leg of the Triple Tiara of Thoroughbred Racing. Originally run at Belmont Park, the Grade I $250,000 stakes race was moved to Saratoga Race Course in 2010....
. Once again they pulled away from the field, going head-to-head at the top of the stretch. But this time the extra ⅛ mile was too much for Meadow Star, while Lite Light put on a powerful drive and won by seven lengths in stakes record time.
After her loss in the Coaching Club American Oaks, Meadow Star was rested until early September, but in her return finished fourth in the one mile Maskette Stakes
Go For Wand Handicap
The Go For Wand Handicap is an American Thoroughbred horse race established in 1954 for fillies and mares age three and up. Raced at the end of July/early August, it is a Grade II race on dirt at a distance of one and one-eighth miles .Inaugurated in 1954 at Belmont Park as the Maskette Stakes in...
. She did not race again until April 24, 1992, and after a season that saw her go winless in five starts with two third-place finishes her best showings, she was retired to broodmare service at Trackside Farm near Versailles, Kentucky
Versailles, Kentucky
As of the census of 2000, there were 7,511 people, 3,160 households, and 2,110 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 3,330 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 88.18% White, 8.67% African American, 0.15% Native American, 0.35%...
.
As a broodmare, Meadow Star produced three foals from Deputy Minister
Deputy Minister (horse)
Deputy Minister was a Canadian-bred Thoroughbred horse racing Champion. At age two, he won eight out of his nine starts and was voted the 1981 Sovereign and Eclipse Award winner as North American Champion 2-Yr-Old, and was also voted Canada's Sovereign Award for Horse of the Year...
and one each from Gulch
Gulch (horse)
Gulch was an American thoroughbred Stallion racehorse. Owned and bred by Peter M. Brant, he was sired by the outstanding North American stud and graded stakes race winner Mr...
and A.P. Indy
A.P. Indy
A.P. Indy is a champion stallion Thoroughbred racehorse bred in Kentucky, USA, by William Farish III and William Kilroy. He is known for his ancestry, his own record, and his successful progeny. He was sired by Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew through mare Weekend Surprise, who herself was sired...
. In 2002, she suffered complications giving birth to a foal by Fusaichi Pegasus
Fusaichi Pegasus
Fusaichi Pegasus was purchased as a yearling for $4 million by Fusao Sekiguchi. His name is a combination of his owner's name, "Fusao," and the Japanese word for one, "ichi," to mean #1 or the best. The second half is the winged horse of Greek mythology. Fusaichi Pegasus won the Kentucky Derby...
and died at the Hagyard Equine Medical Institute equine hospital. She is buried at Trackside Farm.