GOLDIKOVA | BREEDERS’ CUP & ROYAL ASCOT: Best thoroughbred racehorse ever vs Frankel, Enable & Winx?

Goldikova, one of the outstanding thoroughbred racehorses of the 21st century, has died at the age of 16.

GOLDIKOVA (Anabaa x Born Gold)
Trainer: Freddy Head
Owner: Wertheimer & Frere
Jockey: Olivier Peslier

Race record
1st Gr. 1 Prix Rothschild 2011 / 2010 / 2009 / 2008 (Deauville)
1st Gr. 1 Prix D'Ispahan 2011 / 2010 (Longchamp)
1st Gr. 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile 2010 (Churchill Downs)
1st Gr. 1 Prix De La Foret 2010 (Longchamp)
1st Gr. 1 Queen Anne Stakes 2010 (Royal Ascot)
1st Gr. 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile 2009 / 2008 (Santa Anita)
1st Gr. 1 Prix du Haras de Fresnay-Le-Buffard Jacques Le Marois 2009 (Deauville)
1st Gr. 1 Falmouth Stakes 2009 (Newmarket)
1st Gr. 1 Prix du Moulin de Longchamp 2008 (Longchamp)

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Campaigned by owner-breeders Alain and Gerard Wertheimer and trained by Freddy Head in Chantilly, France Goldikova became the first horse to win the same Breeders' Cup race three times when landing the Mile in 2008, 2009 and 2010, performances which earned her election to the US Racing Hall of Fame in 2017.
Among a glittering 14 Group and Grade 1 victories during her career she also won the 2009 Prix Jacques le Marois at Deauville by six lengths, as well as the 2010 Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot.
Jockey Olivier Peslier, who rode Goldikova in every one of her 27 career starts, added: "She was one of the great international champions and to win 14 Group 1s is extremely rare. I used to sit there, taking her back and then off she went. From her very first races we knew – wow! We had a crack on our hands and it was wonderful."
Goldikova's remarkable record at the Breeders' Cup began as a three-year-old when Head took her to Santa Anita for her seventh start of the season and a length and a quarter defeat of Kip Deville.
She returned to California to repeat the trick at four, hitting the front inside the last 50 yards having been just eighth turning into the short Santa Anita straight.
And the hat-trick was completed under the historic twin spires of Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.
Most trainers lucky enough to have one such horse through their hands have little by way of comparison but Head's glittering career in the saddle means he is able to draw comparisons with another great champion mare, also trained in Chantilly by Francois Boutin.
After her retirement following a brave third in the 2011 Breeders' Cup Mile, Goldikova produced seven foals, the best to date being her daughter by Galileo, Terrakova, who won the Group 3 Prix Cleopatre on just her second career start and finished third in the 2017 Prix de Diane Longines won by Senga.
She was not in foal this year but her two most recent offspring, the Dubawi filly Goldistyle and a Galileo colt who has just turned two named Lehman, are both in training with Carlos Laffon-Parias.

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