The connections of Mapleleaf Buddy have announced the long-time WEG circuit performer has been retired

. The son of San Pellegrino goes out a winner having won an elimination for the 2010 Masters Series at Georgian Downs in his last start on July 1, 2010 – the only stakes victory of his career.

Trainer Garth Gordon campaigned the winner of $483,000 who won 21 races and earned a lifetime mark of 1:53.2.

“He hurt a suspensory ligament in the Masters elimination and we had to scratch him from the final,” explains Ralph Piller, who shared ownership of the nine-year-old gelding with the Sugar Rush Stable, Bruce Irving and Greg Gardiner, who passed away in 2009. “We were hoping Buddy could make it back to the races after treatment and time off. We almost made it, but after a 2:00 training trip the leg began to show stress, so we made the decision to retire him.”

In 2006, Gordon purchased the lightly raced gelding for the owners at the beginning of his four-year-old campaign and guided the horse’s rapid climb through the WEG trotting ranks. Mapleleaf Buddy served notice that he had arrived in November 2006 with back-to-back 1.53:2 winning efforts for regular pilot Jack Moiseyev. Unfortunately, just weeks later a cracked knee put the horse on the sidelines for almost a year.

Gordon brought the horse back to races and back to form late in 2007. But after tackling some of harness racing's top trotters in the Glorys Comet, bad luck struck again. This time a broken coffin bone would require surgery to have a pin inserted in the horse’s right hind leg. After another lengthy rehabilitation, Mapleleaf Buddy returned to the trotting wars and would compete at the Open level another 25 times, including a runner-up finish in the 2010 Glorys Comet final. He’s retires the second-richest son of San Pellegrino behind three-time Maple Leaf Trot champion San Pail.

Mapleleaf Buddy is now enjoying some leisure at Dr. David Powell’s farm in Rockwood,” reports the Sugar Rush Stable's Bernard Tobin. “We’re hoping to get him into the standardbred adoption program later this year. He’s a great horse to work around and we think he has the potential to make a nice dressage horse. If that doesn’t work out, we’ll find him a good home with a nice paddock. He’s earned it.”

(A Trot Insider Exclusive by Bernard Tobin)