We were saddened to read the news on October 16th that Medaglia d’Oro passed away, after having been pensioned from stud duty in 2025. A consistent and top-class racehorse for trainer Bobby Frankel and owner Edmund Gann (who purchased him privately via agent Mark Reid after his 3YO debut, a pattern that would be repeated during his stud career when Godolphin purchased him after his successful start at stud and moved him to Darley at Jonabell, where he had stood since and will be buried), Medaglia d’Oro was even more successful as a stallion than he was as a racehorse.
His first crop contained the legendary Rachel Alexandra, and he went on add to his tally the likes of Songbird, Plum Pretty, Violence1, Good Cheer (who became her sire’s third winner of the Kentucky Oaks last year, immediately following the victory of his paternal granddaughter Thorpedo Anna in 2024), plus 2026 G1 winners Nitrogen and Tam Tam, among many others.
One of the more interesting things about Medaglia d’Oro’s racing success was that it came on dirt, despite being a son of the European G1 winner El Prado, himself a son of legendary European stallion Sadler’s Wells — the rest of whose almost-immeasurable influence came pretty much exclusively on turf.
Medaglia d’Oro has also achieved plenty of stallion success with his dirt offspring, though he has been incredibly versatile as a sire (something that might’ve been true of his racing career if he had been given the opportunity).
This versatility was something that he demonstrated not just with his turf runners in North America, but as a successful shuttle stallion for Godolphin/Darley when standing in Australia. His Southern Hemisphere-sired offspring include his all-time leading earner Golden Sixty, plus G1 winners Vancouver and Astern.
Medaglia d’Oro’s dual-hemisphere success (and thus appeal) meant that Vancouver and Astern both got a chance to “reverse” shuttle to Kentucky, for Coolmore and Godolphin/Darley, respectively. Despite their pedigrees and credentials, and both of them being incredibly attractive horses2, neither succeeded in the States and ceased shuttling3.
Demonstrating the roller-coaster nature of participating in the Thoroughbred industry, Medaglia d’Oro’s death was followed less than a day later by Godolphin winning the A$20 million Everest with their homebred filly Tempted. Already a G1 winner of eight prior graded stakes in Australia, Tempted is a daughter of yet another Godolphin/Darley shuttler in Street Boss.
But unlike Medaglia d’Oro, whose Northern Hemisphere success meant that he ceased shuttling to Australia despite having success there as well, Street Boss — who also got a first-crop G1 Kentucky Oaks winner in Cathryn Sophia (just as Medaglia d’Oro had done with Rachel Alexandra) plus additional stateside G1 winners Danza, Capo Bastone and Fair Maiden — was always more highly-regarded Down Under. As such, he was eventually and permanently repatriated to the Southern Hemisphere, where his offspring include not only Tempted but also Godolphin’s all-time G1-winningest runner Anamoe, plus additional G1 winners Tentyris, Green Spaces, Pericles (all for Godolphin), The Quarterback, Pinstriped, etc.
Just like Medaglia d’Oro’s stallion career was marked by the versatility of his offspring, so too has been that of Street Boss. He himself was a G1-winning sprinter in California during the period when those tracks had artificial surfaces installed, sired by Godolphin/Darley’s multiple G1 winner on dirt Street Cry (who was also a successful dual-hemisphere sire of the likes of Zenyatta and Winx). And while all of Street Boss’s Northern Hemisphere G1 winners achieved that status on dirt, all of his Southern Hemisphere G1 winners have been on turf. He has also gotten top-level winners over a range of distances: Cathryn Sophia having won the G1 Kentucky Oaks at 9 furlongs and Green Spaces the G1 ATC Australian Derby over the metric equivalent of 12 furlongs, while Anamoe won G1s from 7 to 10 metric furlongs, and Tempted’s most recent G1 victory came at the Everest’s 6 metric furlongs.
We mentioned in one of our posts a year ago4 about how the Godolphin/Darley program has been on an incredible run of making their own young stallion prospects, and the careers of Medaglia d’Oro and Street Boss demonstrate just how big the shoes are that Maxfield, Essential Quality, Speaker’s Corner, Mystic Guide, Proxy, Cody’s Wish, First Mission, Highland Falls, Sovereignty and Knightsbridge will have to fill.
Violence has been the most successful son of MDO at stud, and was just announced as having been pensioned from “commercial” stallion duty on the day of his sire’s death.
In different ways, though — Vancouver was a big, strapping, masculine horse much in the mold of his sire, while Astern was a more medium-sized, neatly-made and incredibly balanced horse.
Astern does still have the dual Suburban-G2 winner Phileas Fogg representing him here, out of a daughter of the most successful North American-based shuttle stallion of all time, More Than Ready.
Housatonic Meanderings — A Well-Bred Homebred is a Beautiful Thing
This past weekend’s G2 Golden Rod Stakes at Churchill Downs featured a winner from one of the few — and really probably the sole — true remaining homebred operations of any scale in the United States nowadays, namely Bella Ballerina, who was bred and is owned by Godolphin.