Group 1 winner A Shin Forward, who stood in Japan and his native New York, will retire to Old Friends at Cabin Creek later this summer. Barbara Livingston Photo.
By Tom Law
New York-bred multimillionaire and Group 1 winner A Shin Forward, who returned to his native state in time for the 2018 breeding season, has been pensioned from stud duty with plans to retire at Old Friends at Cabin Creek in Greenfield Center later this summer.
Vivien Malloy, who bred, raised and sold the 18-year-old son of Forest Wildcat in the name of her Edition Farm, said the time was right to retire the sire of 26 winners and the earners of more than $2.6 million.
“He’s healthy, but he’s getting older,” Malloy said. “Although he was still very fertile and everything.”
A Shin Forward, who was recently gelded and is recuperating at Rockridge Stud in Hudson before his anticipated move to Old Friends at Cabin Creek, bred seven mares in 2022. He bred six in 2021, one in 2020, eight in 2019 and 12 in 2018, his first season back in the U.S. after siring five crops in Japan.
A Shin Forward stood for an advertised $2,500 at Rockridge.
“It was my decision to bring him home, to bring him back to the states and to New York,” Malloy said. “I thought once people saw him, knew about his stats in Japan, they’d come with mares. And it doesn’t happen at all. … I didn’t want to do it alone. It takes a lot to make a stallion.
“So, I thought I’d keep breeding, see how many mares I can get and those will be the ones to start off his career. He had winners. So far everything I’ve bred to him have won. But it’s that whole blacktype thing. … You’ve got to get that blacktype or forget about breeding a mare.”
A Shin Forward is the sire of 50 foals from nine crops. His leading runner, the Japanese-bred 8-year-old Lord Ace, remains in training this year and has won five of 30 starts and earned $645,465.
Edition Farm bred and races his leading U.S. runner, the 4-year-old filly Shinful, who is 2-4-0 in 13 starts with earnings of $159,220. Trained by David Donk, Shinfull won back-to-back starts at Aqueduct to end 2022 and start 2023 and last started in a Belmont Park allowance on the grass in late June.
Malloy bred A Shin Forward out of her multiple stakes winning New York-bred Cure the Blues mare Wake Up Kiss. She purchased Wake Up Kiss, the winner of the 2003 Yaddo Handicap at Saratoga and earner of $248,997, carrying A Shin Forward in utero for $380,000 at the 2004 Keeneland November breeding stock sale.
A Shin Forward sold through the Denali Stud consignment for $125,000 at the 2006 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale of selected yearlings, a point of pride for Malloy and her team at Edition.
“Craig Bandoroff is my consignor and for years we’ve had this thing, where we go back and forth about where to sell,” Malloy said. “It’s an ego thing to get a horse in the select Saratoga sale. But he always said, ‘you’re not going to get the money. You’ll drown with all those wonderful horses. He would be a star in the New York-bred sale.’ ”
Malloy convinced Bandoroff that time, and put her then yearling in one of the world’s boutique markets.
“I just told him, ‘please, can’t we just this once have some fun?’ ” Malloy said. “He’d just laugh and tell me we might not get the money we deserve. Then he sold for $125,000, and to me that was great.”
Purchased by Rayzin the Bar, A Shin Forward showed up at the Fasig-Tipton Calder sale of selected 2-year-olds in training in March 2007. He posted quarter-mile breezes of :22.1 and :21.1 during presale workouts before selling for $290,000 to Hirotsugo Hirai.
A Shin Forward wins the Group 1 Japan Autumn International Mile Championship at Kyoto racecourse in 2010. Photo courtesy of Japan Racing Association.
A Shin Forward raced for five seasons in Japan for Eishindo Co. Ltd., which prefixes many horse names with the “A Shin” or “Eishin.” He won six of 31 starts with three seconds and three thirds over five seasons, with a defining victory coming in the 2010 Group 1 Japan Autumn International Mile Championship.
A Shin Forward also won the Group 3 Hankyu Hai in 2010 and retired with earnings of $3,416,216. He stood at Lex Stud in Hokkaido, Japan, before returning to the U.S.
“The most enjoyable moments were when he was racing and I would get the videos from Japan,” Malloy said. “I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a race called in Japanese, but it’s intense. I said to the children, ‘I’m going to send you a video of A Shin Forward winning this race, but I’ll send it also in English.’ They laughed and said, ‘Oh no, we like the Japanese one better.’ Over there it’s so exciting. They are crazed about horse racing and he was a star.
“I couldn’t be more excited for him to go to Old Friends at Cabin Creek. I love that place. The people are great, JoAnn and Mark (Pepper). I always thought if I brought him back I’d like him there and not in Kentucky, where I wouldn’t see him very much. It’s great that they have tours during Saratoga and hopefully he’ll be there by that time.”
