Maximum Security, who was voted the Eclipse Award champion 3-year-old male of 2019, will move to Breakway Farm in Indiana to continue his stud career, that farm announced Friday night.
Maximum Security, by New Year’s Day, began his stud career at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky in 2021. He will stand for $3,500 at Breakway in 2026.
Maximum Security is known for becoming entangled in a number of controversies during his racing career. The first of those came when the winner of the Grade 1 Florida Derby, sent away the post-time second choice in the 2019 Kentucky Derby, crossed the line first in that race. However, he was disqualified to 17th for interference after veering out near the five-sixteenths pole – the first such disqualification of a Derby first-place finisher for an in-race infraction.
Maximum Security went on to win the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational and Grade 1 Cigar Mile later that season, as well as the Grade 3 Bold Ruler. The colt, who crossed the line first in seven of his eight outings in 2019, earned the divisional Eclipse.
Maximum Security opened 2020 by crossing the line first in the inaugural $20 million Saudi Cup, the world’s richest race. Less than two weeks later, trainer Jason Servis was among the many individuals in Thoroughbred and Standardbred racing arrested in a wide-ranging federal crackdown on the use and distribution of drugs in racing. In indictments, prosecutors said that Servis was caught on wiretaps admitting to administering illegal substances to nearly all of his horses, specifically mentioning Maximum Security, although no specific date was identified. Servis pleaded guilty to two charges of drug misbranding and adulteration in December 2022. He was sentenced to four years in prison on those charges in the summer of 2023. And in 2024, The Jockey Club of Saudi Arabia finally recommended the disqualification of Maximum Security from his win, saying that Servis committed “substantial breaches of the rules” for the race related to his arrest and conviction.
Meanwhile, Maximum Security was transferred to Bob Baffert by owners Gary and Mary West – who had continued to appeal the Derby disqualification, to no avail – after Servis’s arrest. Maximum Security won the Grade 2 San Diego Handicap, added another Grade 1 in the Pacific Classic, and was second in the Grade 1 Awesome Again to champion Improbable. He finished fifth in the 2020 Breeders’ Cup Classic in his career finale – the only time he ever crossed the line worse than second. His official record stood at 14-9-2-0, with earnings of $2,431,900
As a stallion at Ashford, Maximum Security, whose first foals are 3-year-olds of 2025, is the sire of 39 winners from 89 starters through Friday. His runners are led by three-time stakes winner Instant Replay, and by Rosa Salvaje, a Group 3 winner in France.
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