Norman On Poof Shes Gone Retirement

Trainer Richard 'Nifty' Norman told Trot Insider this morning that O'Brien Award winner Poof Shes Gone has been retired. He also said that the physical issue that the filly fought this year was "the biggest mystery

of my life."

Norman said that Poof Shes Gone was retired right after the November 13 Ontario Sires Stakes Super Finals at Woodbine Racetrack where she finished third and trotted in 1:55.3. He said that the filly is currently at a farm in Pennsylvania and that she will be bred to Muscles Yankee in 2011.

Poof Shes Gone, by Kadabra and out of the Garland Lobell mare Travelin Superlite, was sensational at two. Twelve starts, 10 victories, top stakes wins and over $1 million in purse earnings paved the way for the lass to be named Canada's two-year-old trotting filly of the year for 2009.

Her three-year-old campaign was highly anticipated, and Poof Shes Gone got sharper and sharper leading up to the July 31 eliminations for the Hambletonian Oaks. She went on to lower her career mark in the Hambo Oaks elims, as she came from off the pace to record a three-quarters-of-one-length victory in 1:53.1 at the Meadowlands, but, according to Norman, that is when everything changed.

"We were happy with the way she had come back, but something happened to her after the Hambo Oaks elims. She hasn't been the same since," Norman told Trot Insider. "It's the biggest mystery of my life."

Norman said the filly was "dynamite, and then she bled -- and she bled a lot. She hasn't been good since."

He said that there weren't any lameness issues with Poof Shes Gone this year, but something just took the steam right out of her after the Hambo Oaks elims.

"She just got really swollen. She would just swell right up. Her legs, her neck, her head, her veins. It was really strange. It was like she was fighting something viral, but we couldn't find anything wrong with her. She just had no power after the Hambletonian Oaks and never really got it back. It wasn't a lameness issue at all, she just had no power."

Norman said that the filly showed signs that she was back on the up and up after racing in Kentucky, but that the progress wasn't sustained. "We decided that unless she really came back to her old self in the Super Finals that we would retire her," Norman said.

Poof Shes Gone leaves the racetrack with a slate of 14-3-4 from 26 starts, a mark of 1:53.1 and $1,359,679 in purses for owners Mel Hartman, Herb Liverman, David McDuffee and John Fielding. Norman told Trot Insider that her connections were looking for more.

"We're all really proud of her because she tried to fight through it all," he said. "We would've loved to have brought her back (in 2011, as a four-year-old), but it wouldn't have been fair to her."