by Jeff Lowe

Homewrecker, a vital broodmare in Edward P. Evans’s distinguished band, was euthanized on July 1 because of the infirmities of old age. She was 25.

The homebred Buckaroo mare out of Execution, by The Axe II, produced Grade 1 winner Prenup and four other graded stakes winners from 11 starters. Her Silver Ghost daughter, Marital Spook, is the dam of three stakes winners, including Grade 1 winner and sire Yonaguska.

“It’s very much one of the great families that we’ve been fortunate to have,” said Chris Baker, manager of Evans’s Spring Hill Farm in Casanova, Virginia. “The main thing [Homewrecker] passed on was ability, because they came in different shapes and sizes and some excelled on dirt, some excelled on turf, some had a lot of speed, and some preferred route races. The one thing they had in common was racing ability and racing class.”

Homewrecker hit the board in all four of her starts but never reached the winner’s circle for Evans and trainer Philip G. Johnson.

Her first foal, Honor the Hero, won 25 races, including 13 stakes. The Hero’s Honor gelding equaled a world record by completing six furlongs in 1:06.80 in the 1993 Phoenix Gold Cup Stakes (G3) at Turf Paradise. He also set a Turf Paradise course record in covering five furlongs in :56.20 in 1995.

Stakes winner Capitalimprovement and Marital Spook followed as Homewrecker’s second and third foals, respectively.

Next was Prenup, who won the 1994 Jerome Handicap (G1) and Maryland Million Sprint Handicap after finishing third in the ’93 Futurity Stakes (G1). The Smarten horse stands in Greece.

In 1997, Homewrecker produced five-time stakes winner Cat’s At Home, who scored his biggest victory in the 2002 Philip H. Iselin Handicap (G2). Cat’s At Home, by Tabasco Cat, died in 2007 after standing at Windfields Farm in Ontario.

Evans sent Homewrecker to Ireland to be bred to Giant’s Causeway in his first season in 2001. She returned to Virginia carrying a colt later named Giant Wrecker, who went on to win the 2007 Canadian Turf Handicap (G3).

Homewrecker’s final foal, a three-year-old Stormin Fever filly named Divorce Settlement, is unplaced in one start through July 17. Baker said Homewrecker was not bred in 2008.

Jeff Lowe is a Thoroughbred Times staff writer