BY BROCK SHERIDAN
Florida-bred millionaire C Z Rocket has been retired from racing according to a tweet sent out by co-owner Madaket Racing Stable Monday night.
The multiple stakes-winning 10-year-old made his last start Monday at Oaklawn Park, finishing sixth in a $62,500 optional claiming starter allowance, capping off a career with 13 wins, nine seconds and seven thirds from 46 starts. His career earnings of $2,144,691 rank him 34th on the list of all-time leading Florida-bred money earners.
“He retired sound and healthy and happy and that was always our goal,” Miller was quoted as saying in a Daily Racing Form story. “We sent out a press release through Robert Yates of Oaklawn after the race yesterday that we decided to call it a day with him. He had done enough. So we’re going to find him a good home and it might just be with me.”
Bred by Vincent Perez’s Farm III Enterprises LLC, C Z Rocket was a star before he made it to the track having sold for $800,000 to Frank Fletcher Racing Operations at the 2016 Ocala Breeders’ Sales June Sale where he was consigned by John Stephens’ Stephens Thoroughbreds. The price was a record for the OBS June Sale at that time.
Fletcher campaigned C Z Rocket through his first 17 starts before trainer Peter Miller and owner Tom Kaegle claimed him for $40,000 at Oaklawn in April of 2020. He would win his next five starts for Miller and Kaegle including the Grade 2 Pat O’Brien at Del Mar and Grade 2 Santa Anita Championship before finishing second to Whitmore in that year’s Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1) at Keeneland.
Sol Kumin’s Madaket Stables and Gary Barber then joined the ownership team with Kaegle and C Z Rocket promptly won the $200,000 Hot Springs and Grade 3 Count Fleet at Oaklawn, defeating runner-up Whitmore in both races.
By City Zip out of Successful Sarah, by Successful Appeal, C Z Rocket would make two more starts in the Qatar Racing Breeders’ Cup Sprint, finishing seventh after a slow start in the 2021 version won by Aloha West and second again, this time to Elite Power in 2022 at Keeneland as an 8-year-old.
C Z Rocket is one of 12 Florida-breds with at least three starts in Breeders’ Cup races including Aikenite, Beautiful Pleasure, Bet On Sunshine, Bridgetown, Firenze Fire (five BC starts), Flat Out, Forbidden Apple, Golden Pal, Jeronimo, Precisionist (four BC starts) and Pure Sensation (four BC starts).
