NEWS
Leading sire Hennessy dies of heart attack
Posted: Friday, August 10, 2007 10:40 AM
HENNESSY
Shigeki Kikkawa photo
Hennessy, the Grade 1 winner who was leading juvenile sire in 2001 when his son, Johannesburg, won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) en route to champion two-year-old male honors, died of an apparent heart attack at La Mission in Argentina. He was 14.
Johannesburg himself went on to become the leading freshman sire of 2006, and he continues to stand at Ashford Stud in Versailles, Kentucky, where Hennessy had stood from 1997-’07 excluding the 2001 season in Japan.
“He’ll be sadly missed,” Ashford manager Dermot Ryan said. “It’s a loss. He left behind a potentially really good son in Johannesburg, who we’re really happy with what he is doing as a sire—that’s a big consolation.”
Hennessy won the 1995 Hopeful Stakes (G1) before finishing second by a neck to Unbridled's Song in that year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. He won four of nine starts and earned $580,400.
He entered stud in 1997, and his first crop included Australian champion Grand Armee, Grade 1 winner Harmony Lodge, and Grade 2 winner Keats. His eight crops of racing age include 57 stakes winners from 772 starters who have earned $53,730,087.
Other young sons of Hennessy currently at stud are Grade 1 winner Henny Hughes and stakes winners Blazonry, Cactus Ridge, and Wiseman’s Ferry.
