Trot Insider has learned that O’Brien Award winner Solar Sister has been retired and will be starting her broodmare career.
Owned by David Wilmot and Clay Horner, Solar Sister was honoured as the Three-Year-Old Filly Pacer of the Year at the 2015 O’Brien Awards following a season capped with a win in the $250,000 Ontario Sires Stakes Super Final and a fourth-place finish in the $648,700 Breeders Crown at Woodbine.
Starting her four-year-old season, Solar Sister notched wins in the $100,000 Chip Noble Memorial at Miami Valley, $200,000 Artiscape Pace at Tioga Downs and an elimination for the Roses Are Red at Mohawk, and earned runner-up spots in the $229,900 Golden Girls and $235,950 Lady Liberty. Towards the end of the season, she raced in the Milton Stakes, which, according to owner Clay Horner, was possibly when the issues arose that would lead to her retirement.
"On the night of warming up for the Milton [eliminations], when [her trainer] Gregg [McNair] had to go his first jogging mile with her, there was a colt out there who jumped sideways because of a tractor,” Horner said, “and Gregg had to grab her up quickly.
"Solar Sister started running behind the gate and I’m just like ‘What!’ She finished [third], but she should’ve won."
Horner talked with trainer Gregg McNair the next morning and confirmed that she hit a rock during the incident prior to the Milton elimination. She finished the year with a third in the $100,000 Ellamony Pace at Flamboro Downs, a fourth in the $250,000 Breeders Crown Mare Pace, and a fourth in the $200,000 TVG Free For All Mares Pace.
"We just knew she wasn’t herself," Horner said, "and over the winter we thought we could figure out what was wrong."
Solar Sister shipped south to Pompano Park with McNair for the winter in 2017. Her first qualifier was on April 8, where she finished second in 1:56.3.
“I called David [Wilmot] and I said ‘There’s something wrong,’” Horner said. “And he goes ‘Ah, it’s just the first qualifier; she went in [1]:56.’ Then I said ‘David, there’s no way she gets beaten in 1:56. I don’t care.’”
Qualifying three more times following, Solar Sister made her five-year-old debut in June for the Roses Are Red elimination, finishing sixth. She was then fifth in a Preferred and eighth in an overnight before scratching sick in July. She qualified on August 4 in 1:52.3 before being sidelined.
“Gregg called me, I think in the middle of August, and told me ‘You’re not going to believe this. I have a new hoof guy here, and he cut her foot open.’ It was the most unbelievable ugly black mess I have ever seen. I don’t know how she went. It looked like a foot that had cancer for six years.”
Returning to the track in late September, Solar Sister qualified two more times -– winning by four-and-three-quarter lengths in 1:52.4, but then won the next by a head in 1:53.3.
“She went a qualifier in [1]:52 and she was good, but then we came back with her the next week and she wasn’t. We were in the middle of October now and thought ‘Well, if she had raced a huge year this year, maybe we would’ve raced her again, but let’s just retire her and breed her.’”
A regally-bred daughter of Mach Three and Cabrini Hanover, Solar Sister retires with 14 wins from 49 starts and more than $1.1-million in earnings. She now looks forward to her next career as a broodmare and a date in the breeding shed with harness racing's fastest horse, Always B Miki.
All the Best on her new
All the Best on her new career