Reigning Horse of the Year Ghostzapper Is Retired

Those hoping for a Breeders’ Cup Classic matchup between Afleet Alex, the impressive winner of the Preakness and Belmont Stakes, and Ghostzapper, the defending Classic champion and reigning horse of the year, will not get their wish.

Ghostzapper, who won the Metropolitan Handicap by 6 1/4 lengths in his 2005 debut May 30 at Belmont Park, has been retired because of a hairline fracture of a sesamoid bone in his left front leg.

Owned by Frank Stronach, who sold an interest in the horse to Jess Jackson last month, and trained by Bobby Frankel, the 5-year-old son of Awesome Again finished his career with nine wins in 11 starts and earnings of $3,446,120.

Ghostzapper will leave Belmont Park on Thursday and go to Stronach’s Adena Springs Farm in Versailles, Ky., where he will stand at stud. Frankel said Ghostzapper developed a filling in the leg after the Metropolitan, and when it persisted, he sent the horse to New Bolton Medical Center in Kennett Square, Pa., for a nuclear scan.

“It showed a hot spot,” he said. “They discovered a small crack, and they said it was very difficult to find.... If we did an operation, he wouldn’t have been able to race again this year and we weren’t going to run him as a 6-year-old.

“He was a great horse. He could do anything. He could route and he could sprint, and he galloped in his two races in the slop. He could win on the lead or he could come from last. I don’t think there’s a sprinter in the country who could have beaten him.

“It’s very disappointing, but at the same time it’s a relief because he’s going home in one piece.”

Ghostzapper, who began his career with an easy maiden win at Hollywood Park in the fall of 2002, had six stakes wins, four of them during his horse-of-the-year campaign last year.

He began his perfect season with a victory in the seven-furlong Tom Fool at Belmont, then won the Philip H. Iselin in the slop at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J., and the Woodward at Belmont Park before beating a star-studded field in the Breeders’ Cup Classic in Grand Prairie, Texas, on Oct. 30.

He set Classic and track records, completing the 1 1/4 miles in 1:59.02 under regular rider Javier Castellano.

Scheduled to make his 2005 debut in the Oaklawn Handicap at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., in April, Ghostzapper was sick and missed the race, then surfaced in the Metropolitan, where he dominated. The stud fee for Ghostzapper will be set later. His sire, a former Breeders’ Cup Classic winner himself, stood for $125,000 in 2005.