TOUSSAUD, DAM OF FOUR GRADE/GROUP 1 WINNERS, DIES
Article written by Glenye Cain Oakford
Toussaud, 2002 Broodmare of the Year and one of only four North American-based mares to produce four Grade 1 winners, has died at age 20.
Khalid Abdullah's Juddmonte Farms, which bred and owned the mare, said Toussaud was euthanized in Kentucky on Tuesday due to declining health.
A Grade 1 winner herself, Toussaud went on to produce Grade 1 winners Chester House, Honest Lady, Chiselling, and Empire Maker, as well as the Grade 1-placed and Grade 2 winner Decarchy. Only three other mares have matched that record since North American stakes grading began in 1971: Dahlia, Fall Aspen, and Hasili, another Juddmonte homebred who has produced five Grade 1 winners.
Toussaud developed laminitis in 1995, and although she became sound enough to continue her breeding career, she required particular care, including a special stall with rubber flooring under its straw bedding, and a heating and air conditioning option for extreme weather. A veterinarian also checked her feet weekly.
Noted for physical and mental toughness, Toussaud also survived an impaction that led to colic surgery in 2000.
Toussaud had been retired from the breeding shed for two years and produced her last foal, the A.P. Indy filly Gateway, in 2006. The 3-year-old is unraced.
Toussaud also was famous for her quirky personality. Trained by Bobby Frankel, she was known to stop suddenly in the middle of gallops and refuse to move. She also declined to breeze from a racetrack pole, requiring Frankel to breeze her only from the gate. She passed some of her eccentricity, as well as her strength of character, on to many of her foals.
"She was obviously a great broodmare but was an even more special character with a very unique personality," said the farm statement announcing her death. "Though amazingly stubborn at times, she was never seen to pin her ears or try to intentionally harm anyone or anything. She had a very kind yet powerfully strong and resilient nature that lives on in the competitive juices of offspring of Chester House, Empire Maker, Decarchy, and her daughter Honest Lady."
Toussaud, a daughter of the In Reality mare Image of Reality, produced a total of 10 foals, of which seven started and six were winners.
Toussaud will be buried in the equine graveyard at Juddmonte's Kentucky farm in Lexington.
Date:
8 January 2009