Two-Time Whitney Winner Commentator Euthanized

[Wandering Eyes]

Commentator (Distorted Humor–Outsource, by Storm Bird), a two-time winner of the GI Whitney Handicap for owner Tracy Farmer and trainer Nick Zito, was euthanized on Friday, June 27, at Old Friends at Cabin Creek in New York due to long-term complications from Potomac horse fever. He was 24 years old.

Bred in New York by Michael Martinez, the chestnut was a $45,000 Keeneland November weanling and was purchased by Farmer for $135,000 out of the 2002 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Sale. After besting his fellow Empire-breds by over 27 combined lengths in his first three starts in his debut season in 2004, he took Keeneland's Perryville Stakes by seven lengths and completed an unblemished campaign with an eight-length Churchill allowance success.

Commentator set demanding factions and held on to win the 2005 Whitney by a neck over future GI Breeders' Cup Classic winner and Horse of the Year Saint Liam, the pair pulling nine lengths clear of Farmer's Sir Shackleton, and added big-margin victories in state-bred stakes company at ages five and six. He celebrated his best season at the races as a 7-year-old in 2008, taking out the seven-furlong GII Richter Scale Handicap by 13 3/4 lengths ahead of a pacesetting runner-up effort in the GI Met Mile. He bossed his rivals from the front to take the 2008 Whitney by nearly five lengths and added the final renewal of the Massachusetts Handicap in his next start, scoring by 14 lengths. A New York-bred stakes winner and third in an attempt to take a third Whitney in 2009, two-time New York Horse of the Year Commentator retired with a record of 14-1-4 from 24 starts and earnings of $2,049,845, the 10th most of any New York-bred in history. He holds the Belmont main-track record for 7 1/2 furlongs (1:27.44) and the Commentator Stakes is held each year in the gelding's honor.

Commentator was originally retired to Old Friends' Dream Chase Farm in Georgetown, Kentucky, before being permanently relocated to Cabin Creek in 2016. Commentator spent the final few years of his retirement in the company of Watchem Smokey while helping bring awareness to Old Friends' mission of dignified retirement for all racehorses.

“He was well loved and we will miss him forever,” said Old Friends at Cabin Creek manager JoAnn Pepper. “He was a champion through and through and was very brave.”

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