Home Competition Index | First Posted July 4, 2010 Jan 21, 2020 | |
Black Tie Affair/Racehorse
Breeders' Cup Wins: Awards: Black Tie Affair (April 1, 1986 - July 1, 2010) was a thoroughbred racehorse. Bred by American businessman Stephen D. Peskoff, he was out of the mare Hat Tab Girl and sired by Miswaki, who also sired Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner Urban Sea and who was a two-time Leading broodmare sire in Great Britain and Ireland. Black Tie Affair was brought to the United States where he stood as a yearling at Cynthia and Walter Reese's Timber Creek Farm in New Jersey. Reese trained the colt as a 2-year-old for Edward P. Swyer of Hudson River Farm before being sold to Jeffrey Sullivan in 1989 for $125,000 as a three-year-old on the advice of trainer, Ernie T. Poulos. Black Tie Affair was a graded stakes race winner at two, three, four, and five and earned United States Horse of the Year in 1991 along with winning the Breeder's Cup Classic that year at Churchill Downs in a wire-to-wire victory over Twilight Agenda and Unbridled with Jerry Bailey aboard. Retirement Originally retired in 1992 to Kentucky, and sent to Japan in 1997 for stud duty, in 2003 there was some worry that Black Tie Affair might meet the same fate as the great Ferdinand, who was reportedly sent to the slaughterhouse in Japan when his stud career was over. Instead, with the help of several people, from turf enthusiasts to prominent businessmen, Black Tie Affair's ex-trainer's wife, Dee Poulos, started a campaign to bring him back to the United States. Black Tie Affair was retired to Old Friends in Georgetown Ky. He was humanely euthanized at Old Friends on July 1, 2010 due to laminitis. His best known sons are Evening Attire, Formal Gold, and the multiple stakes winning filly, License Fee, along with the Japanese winner, Washington Color and Today's Affair. |