Always Dreaming, winner of the 2017 Kentucky Derby, has died following a bout with colic. The son of Bodemeister was 10.
Always Dreaming entered stud at WinStar Farm in Kentucky in 2019. He was sold earlier this year to stand at River Oaks Farm in Oklahoma, and would have had his first season there in 2025.
Chad Schumer, who brokered the deal to send the horse to Oklahoma, told the Thoroughbred Daily News that Always Dreaming spent four days at a clinic with colic symptoms, which did not require surgery, before returning to River Oaks. However, he then became acutely ill and died on Dec. 10.
“It was very unexpected in the sense that they thought they were over the hurdle of him having the colic,” Schumer said. “So it was particularly devastating, because they thought, oh, God, this horse is sick, they went through the whole four days of him getting better, thinking everything is going to be okay, and he just went downhill very quickly.”
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Always Dreaming was trained by Todd Pletcher for Brooklyn Boyz Stables, Teresa Viola Racing Stables, Siena Farm, West Point Thoroughbreds, MeB Racing Stables, and St. Elias Stables. In addition to the Kentucky Derby, he won that spring’s Florida Derby and placed in two other graded stakes.
From his first three crops of racing age, Always Dreaming is the sire of five stakes winners, led by Grade 1 winner Saudi Crown.
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