The connections of Freaky Feet Pete have announced that the multiple stakes-winning millionaire has been retired and will head to the breeding shed for the 2020 breeding season.
A son of Rockin Image - Skyway Lori, Freaky Feet Pete will stand stud at Ivy Lane Farm in Indiana. His stud fee has not yet been announced.
Freaky Feet Pete dominated the Indiana-bred competition through most of his early career. He destroyed his competition by 11 lengths in the $220,000 Indiana Sires Stakes Super Final as a two-year-old but rose to prominence his sophomore season when faced with eventual 2015 Horse of the Year Wiggle it Jiggleit. Freaky Feet Pete lost to Wiggle It Jiggleit early in the year but finished on top in the $220,000 Super Final before supplementing to and winning the $689,244 Breeders Crown at Woodbine Racetrack.
He again bested Wiggle It Jiggleit following the Breeders Crown with a 1:49.3 victory in the Monument Circle at his homebase of Hoosier Park.
Trainer Larry Rheinheimer tried Freaky Feet Pete then on the Grand Circuit as a four-year-old. He finished second in the $500,000 Ben Franklin at Pocono Downs following a five-length victory in a world record 1:47.1f in his elimination and the next week finished second to Wiggle It Jiggleit in the $250,000 Graduate Final at the Meadowlands. Following a string of off-the-board efforts Freaky Feet Pete finished second in the $170,000 Hoosier Park Pacing Derby. But two days later his trainer Larry Rheinheimer died unexpectedly at age 72.
Four days following Larry’s death Freaky Feet Pete raced in the $150,000 Dayton Pacing Derby where trainer Marty Rheinheimer said the stallion “pretty much raced on three legs.” He had chipped a splint bone, which cut into a suspensory ligament and forced him to the bench for the remainder of the year.
Freaky Feet Pete’s stakes career essentially came to a close following that injury but he continued to race valiantly against overnight competition for the next three years at Hoosier Park.
From 76 starts, Freaky Feet Pete visited the winner's circle on 37 occasions. He boasts that 1:47.1 mark taken as a four-year-old at Pocono with more than $1.7 million in earnings for owners Mary Jo and Marty Rheinheimer.