Arrogate euthanized after suffering from undetermined illness

Update: Other racing nations are reporting that Arrogate died of a “mystery illness”. Interesting choice of words. Arrogate was worked on for four days in an attempt to keep him alive for breeding purposes. This after he had won his connections a record $17,422,600.

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THE THOROUGHBRED DAILY NEWS (May 2, 2020) — ARROGATE (Unbridled’s Song–Bubbler, by Distorted Humor), the richest North American racehorse in history, was humanely euthanized Tuesday morning at Juddmonte Farms in Lexington, Kentucky, after suffering from an undetermined illness, Juddmonte Farms announced via press release. He was 7-years-old.

“It is with great sadness that Juddmonte confirms that Arrogate was euthanized this morning, after a battle to save him [from] an illness that began last week. It is still unclear what the illness was and a post -mortem is currently being carried out,” the release said.

Juddmonte Farms is a horse breeding farm, owned by Prince Khalid bin Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

“Arrogate had a very successful breeding season this year, until last week when his breeding was suspended due to an initial suspected sore neck,” it continued. “Later in the week, he fell to the ground in his stall and efforts to get him back up proved unsuccessful. He was transported to the Hagyard Clinic under the care of Dr. Bob Hunt and Dr. Nathan Slovis with Dr. Steve Reed representing the insurance company.

“They worked tirelessly with the staff from the Hagyard Clinic eliminating all the obvious causes and performing all available tests, including spinal tap evaluation, X-ray, ultrasound, CT Scan and many blood tests.

“Unfortunately, Arrogate was still unable to stand after four exhausting days for him. His will to fight, so valuable to him on the racetrack, became a challenge in his care. When serious secondary health issues set in, the decision was made to put him to sleep.”

Trainer Bob Baffert told TDN after hearing the news, “I was crushed when I heard this. There is a real empty feeling. I feel bad for the people at Juddmonte because they were with him everyday.” Read more »

Arrogate finished his career with seven wins in 11 career starts and retired in 2017 at the age of 4 with $17,422,600 in earnings. He was sold to Juddmonte Farms for $560,000 at the 2014 Keeneland September Yearling Sale.

Getty Images. Why does Baffert use so much “junk” in a horse’s mouth? It’s brutal. He’s a cruel arse.

Any Bob Baffert trained horse is on heaven knows what kind of illicit cocktail of drugs and what the resulting damage might have been to the now dead Arrogate. In addition to the side effects that goes hand in hand with any type of drug, particularly administered in potentially lethal combinations, the withdrawal period itself could also have been damaging. It will be interesting to see what the necropsy results reveal, that’s if we can of course believe what they choose to publish.

Arrogate was no doubt a superb horse but sadly he will go down in history as one of Baffert’s “chemical horses”. The horse’s record will have an asterisk noting he ran during the egregious doping era currently underway — of which Baffert of course is king.

In the meantime, Baffert’s ego is as relentless as his cheating. Listen to this quote, “I have gotten to train three of the most gifted horses ever, American Pharoah, Justify and Arrogate.” Not only is Baffert a scoundrel of the highest proportion, he is a delusional one as well.

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