by Jeff Lowe
Grade 1 winner Chelsey Flower was euthanized on March 14 at Rood and Riddle Equine Clinic in Lexington due to complications from foaling.
The 16-year-old His Majesty mare had difficulty while foaling a Dixie Union colt on January 27 and developed further complications in March, said Robert Courtney Jr. of Crestfield Farm, the Lexington facility where she was boarded.
The foal was placed with a nurse mare, Courtney said.
Chelsey Flower won the 1996 Flower Bowl Invitational (G1) and Sheepshead Bay (G2) Handicaps at Belmont Park for trainer Nick Zito and owner Farfellow Farms Ltd.
Jaime Carrion purchased Chelsey Flower in foal to Storm Cat for $1.1-million in the 1997 Keeneland November breeding stock sale. The resulting foal, a colt named Wow, placed in two stakes.
Chelsey Flower’s fourth live foal, a Kingmambo colt named Kentucky Dynamite, won the 2006 Prix Paul de Moussac (Fr-G3) and finished second to Stormy River in the Prix Jean Prat (Fr-G1).
Out of the Affirmed mare Chelsey Dancer, Chelsey Flower won eight of 38 starts and earned $568,305. She won the Miss Grillo Stakes (G3) at Belmont as a two-year-old and placed in four graded stakes during a four-season career.
Jeff Lowe is a Thoroughbred Times staff writer