Orb Retired, to Stand at Claiborne in 2014
 

Very disappointed.

Orb Retired, to Stand at Claiborne in 2014

groan

so much for that.

Sooo he's retiring completely sound eh? Is that code for 'we can't figure out what's wrong with him based on our tests, and there's no way of knowing if we can fix it or how long that might take'? I get retiring if you don't want to risk finding yourself in summer 2014 with a horse whose issue has still not been determined. I'm guessing it's not bone or tendon related or they'd know.

Or he bleeds...which of course would be the ultimate irony considering his connections

i'm figuring it's that he doesn't seem to be getting to where he was in the spring, so retire him and make money that way.

Janney must not like racing his Grade I winning dirt colts beyond their 3 year old seasons.. He did the same thing with Coronado's Quest.

Maybe Norumbega can fill Orb's shoes next year. :rolleyes:

I was as huge a fan as anyone, and glad to see Phipps/Shug win the Derby, but what did he actually accomplish that would make him "A wonderful stallion prospect"?

The Florida derby was a very nice race - the Kentucky Derby was a pace meltdown that gave an excuse to talk about Golden Soul for a few moments - hardly a win for the ages.

If he's not right he's not right - glad they aren't bringing him back and doing right by the horse. But I can't envision him as a top prospect based on his body of work.

He won the FL Derby and KY Derby and is by Malibu Moon, that about does it nowdays.

It could be a bone or tendon injury. When there is a bone or tendon injury, some owners will make it public, but other won't. There have been plenty of cases where a horse was retired due to unsoundness or an injury and the owners announced that the horse was "retired sound".

With regard to Orb specifically, I have no idea. I would say that whatever it was, the connections were not particularly confident that the horse was going to be able regain his old form. I would say he is worth much more right now as a stallion than he would be in a year from now if he bombed as a racehorse next year.

ditto

he had a great spring, he won the derby, he's by a hot sire and out of an unbridled mare. he's got better credentials than many of these others getting deals.
i'm not surprised at all. disappointed, but not surprised.


he must not have been working well or looking good leading to the cigar mile, so they figured what the heck.


any word on point of entry? i'd imagine he's done as well.

I think if people take a retrospective look at the "inside straight" Orb pulled off in Fountain of Youth, Florida Derby, and Kentucky Derby ... they'll see that he was an example of decent horse, with the right type of running style, getting good and lucky at the right time.

Orb's reputation is built almost entirely on that inside-straight.

Violence was the better horse in the Fountain of Youth. I don't see any person with two eyes and a basic understanding of horse racing who can argue that.

Orb's Florida Derby win wasn't all that impressive. Merit Man was 3rd going 9 furlongs. A 100/1 shot was 4th. 2nd place had missed almost an entire month of training.

Orb's Kentucky Derby win from way in back of a pace meltdown hardly looks impressively, especially retrospectively. Though his presence in the race did save us from Golden Soul becoming the worst KY Derby winner since the 1930's.

Mine That Bird's Derby win, also on a wet track, was a more impressive performance than Orb's. He was another horse who got hot at the right time and made his reputation on 3 races.

Orb's reputation was such, that almost halfway through Gulfstream, Shug didn't even want to give him a shot on the triple crown trail. His hand was basically forced.

Not only was MTB's Derby better, his subsequent races in the Triple Crown were much better.

You are right, but Mine That Bird had awful form outside of the Triple Crown.

"2-year-old champion in Canada" or not, he was an unbelievable mediocrity outside of the Triple Crown series.

Take the money? Please the last thing Janney/Phipps need is money... Very disappointed ORB has been retired

Look at Super Saver, another slop monkey who did absolutely nothing outside of the Derby. I'd take Mine That Bird over him as well.

One of the Jockey Club's big initiatives for 2014 is its partnership with Fox Sports to televise a series of races for older horses. Now, the Jockey Club's own leaders retire their 2013 Derby winner; regardless of what we all think of the quality of Orb's Derby victory, his presence would have helped that series.

If Will Take Charge had performed as poorly as Palace Malice did, I really believe they'd have taken a shot at the Cigar Mile ... where a win or a visually impressive 2nd could have been enough to steal the 3yo championship.

With Will Take Charge getting beat just a nose in the Breeders Cup Classic, the chance at the title has realistically 100% slipped away.

It's still a business at the end of the day. Very few people would bring back a 4yo who might not be that competitive in top handicap races, if they can start at a 25k stud fee and get interest.

Extremely disappointing... Sort of like a college basketball player that leaves early to go to the pro's... Orb's family didnt need the money and the breeding industry wasnt in dire need of Orb.. Feels like Claiborne wanted this and since they gave Data Link a shot they got Orb in the shed early.. Just spectulating

true, they don't need it. but rich people are rich because they know when to hold and know when to fold.

my point is, based on orb's post derby form, that he's bound to bring them more in the shed than on the track. i'm very disappointed as well. i have to think they just felt he wasn't moving forward in training. too bad.

I'd generally assume 'yeah right, they know he's not sound' because we've heard that before, but something about the way Shug and the owners were talking about him in interviews and things made me feel like they were genuinely baffled. At least during the TC and coming out of Fair Hill. I've seen enough BS delivered to know if they were going 'nothing to see here, folks' about a known problem. Maybe there was something brewing and they figured it out later. I think if he'd bled through Lasix they'd have known that too before he falls on his face the last time. Simple enough to detect with scoping isn't it? Possibly even visually. They wait til November probably after trying to get him ready again and still not being able to. Curiouser and curiouser.

Remember when Orb was sent to Fair Hill? There was all sorts of chatter since Shug had never even set foot on the place prior.The fact is that Fair Hill, in addition to being a wonderful place for horses to live, has a full equine therapy center, complete with hyperbaric chamber, vibrating floors, pool etc. After a tough spring he went there post-Belmont with an eye to being back on track for the Jim Dandy. He didn't make the Jim Dandy and stayed in MD as long as possible before the Travers.
His Travers wasn't bad considering, but he was back to Fair Hill almost immediately thereafter. Sure, he'd reportedly liked FH, but it was hardly the Phipps/Janney/McGaughey model. It told me that something was "not quite right" even if no one was sure what "it" was.

Whatever issues he may have right now, he may not have had during the TC. Or as you said, he may have had something that was just beginning to brew back then which became more evident later.

And I agree with everything that Linny said.

Maybe once. If he continued to run up the track his allure would be minimal.

The difference being that Orb probably woudn't get drafted after his Post Derby performances. If there really wasnt any major issues and he was running poorly why would they believe he would reverse that trend? Perhaps Shug thought that he has seen better days and wasnt confident that he could get him back to the top of the division again?

exactly.
they couldn't take a chance on that happening again, especially without finding an excuse. after all, if something is broke, but you don't know what, how do you fix it?
also agree with what doug said about 3 yo honors. they probably figure WTC has it wrapped up, whether they ran in and won the cigar mile or not. and i have to think he just wasn't showing that same spark he had in fla and ky.
it happens. we've all seen horses suddenly get really good, or run a huge race, only to never do so again.

Supposedly Shug liked it so much that he has bought a barn at Fair Hill. However it was odd that he choose to keep the horse there and undergo extensive hyperbaric treatments.

I thought Shug showed incredible honesty during the triple crown trail. Admitting that he thought Orb was an Aqueduct spring horse and only joining the triple crown trail after having his hand forced.

If he says he's completely sound, I believe he's honest.

Orb raced in the Autumn at AQU, winter at GP, all 3 triple crown events, did a lot of traveling, I'm not sure why it's supposed to be so disconcerting that he was freshened at Fair Hill, when Fair Hill is supposed to be the best place a horse can go for a freshening.

What benefit would they have not disclosing an injury? A lot of excellent sires weren't sound horses. Danzig had 3 races and never even made it anywhere. Mr. Prospector had injuries. Storm Cat had injuries and never had a decent campaign. A. P. Indy had a couple of physical setbacks, was scratched from the Derby.

It's tinfoil hat stuff to speculate he was injured and they concealed it. It's almost as bad to speculate that he was as good or better than Easy Goer.

We are all guessing. To me it seems like a favor to Claiborne who's stallion roster has gone from a non factor to dominate in 5 years.

As hard as it is to pick winners on the track to bet...It is so much tougher to predict Stallion success. War Front? Tapit Malibu Moon? who thought these 3 could ever be the sports top producers. Malibu Moon had to be a billion to 1 to be a world class producer.

Malibu Moon had quite the longevity himself. ;)

I dont believe he was injured. As a trainer there is little more frustrating than when your horse goes off form with no readily apparent reason. If there is an injury or persistent issue like sore feet then you have something to deal with and once you get the issue under control good horses will generally return to form or something close to it. When you can not find an issue or there is no real pyhsical reason why the horse is under performing you do things like send the horse to Fairhill to be freshened up and get hyperbaric treatment in hopes that solves whatever the hidden issue is. Obviously outside of a decent Travers run it didnt work with Orb.

Follows the footsteps of Danzig

Orb was at Belmont in advance of JCGC right?

i give the credit to hughes and the pons. then again, sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

no. stayed at fair hill, shipped in just a few days before the race. had a work at FH just 5 days prior.

I had read that Shug was keeping the colt at Fair Hill because it was "quiet" and he's a very nervous animal.

hey, if i was a horse, i'd want to stay at fair hill.

Malibu Moon displayed freakish ability in his brief career.

He has a great pedigree as well.

Brief is the key word. Not freakish....Everything that is wrong with what we breed.

Could it be that the horse, or Orb in this case, just doesn't "want to play the game" anymore? (kind of like a show horse going ring sour)

you're conflating injury and unsoundness. he suffered an injury. he wasn't fragile, he got hurt. are you suggesting that if a horse suffers an injury before a certain amount of starts, he should be barred from standing at stud? if so, what's the magic number that delineates between sound and durable, and unsound and fragile?