Grade 3 Beaugay, May 4, 2013 (Adam Coglianese)
William J. Punk, Jr. and Philip DiLeo’s multiple New York-bred champion and nine-time stakes winner Hessonite has been retired from racing at age five and will be offered for sale at the Fasig-Tipton November sale, as reported last week in the Daily Racing Form.
Trainer David Donk told the Form that while fan-favorite Hessonite is sound, her summer campaign, which included two races 17 days apart in July, took its toll. “I knocked her out with those two races,” Donk said. “Any other horse I’d turn her out for a couple of months and bring her back. But I don’t have that luxury with her being in the sale. She wasn’t quite the same, so it was my advice to the owners not to press on.” Added Donk, “She’s been great to me, there’s not any more to gain. She’s going to make somebody a heck of a broodmare.”
Hessonite was bred by Berkshire Stud in partnership with John Meriwether’s Waterville Lake Stables Limited, LLC. A daughter of perennial leading New York turf sire Freud (Sequel Stallions), and a half-sister to two stakes winners, she is out of Lakab, a winning daughter of Manila with three siblings who won at the Grade/Group 2 and 3 levels. She was purchased by William Punk, Jr. as a 2009 Keeneland September yearling for $27,000.
First stakes victory in NYSS Cupecoy’s Joy, June 5, 2011 (Adam Coglianese)
After racing on dirt for three of four starts at two (and breaking her maiden in an off-the-turf event second out), Hessonite truly blossomed when she became a full-time turf runner at three, winning four of six starts, including the Cupecoy’s Joy Division of the New York Stallion Stakes series (NYSS) in her stakes debut at Belmont in June and a male / female combined three-year-old division of the NYSS at Saratoga.
At four Hessonite won four of eight starts – all stakes – while waging a spirited divisional rivalry with Gitchee Goomie. Following back-to-back wins in the Irish Linnet and Yaddo at Saratoga, at Belmont she won the John Hettinger and the Ticonderoga on Showcase Day.
Aboard Hessonite after Cupecoy’s Joy, Ramon Dominguez celebrates six victories at Belmont (Adam Coglianese)
Withdrawn from last year’s Fasig-Tipton November sale to race at five, Hessonite captured the Grade 3 Beaugay in her 2013 seasonal debut with a dazzling late run. The blaze-faced chestnut also went out a winner, taking the On the Bus Stakes for state-breds on July 19 in her final career start, which was also the first stakes race of the historic 2013 Saratoga race meet.
From nine stakes victories and four stakes placings in 22 career starts, and an overall career record of 11-3-1, Hessonite earned $879,644.
Among the many memorable moments in Hessonite’s career, her first stakes victory must rank high. After Hessonite won the Cupecoy’s Joy, she made retired Eclipse Award winning jockey Ramon Dominguez only the second jockey in history to win six races on a single Belmont card as his final mount of the day.
