| Dunkirk | |
|---|---|
| Sire | Unbridled's Song |
| Grandsire | Unbridled |
| Dam | Secret Status |
| Damsire | A.P. Indy |
| Sex | Stallion |
| Foaled | 2006 |
| Country | United States |
| Colour | Gray |
| Breeder | W.S. Farish, James Elkins & W.T. Webber, Jr. |
| Owner | Mrs. John Magnier, Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith. Racing Colors: Blue, blue cap. |
| Trainer | Todd Pletcher |
| Record | 5:2-2-0 |
| Earnings | $350,000 |
Dunkirk is an American Thoroughbred Racehorse born in 2006. He is the son of graded stakes winner and major sire Unbridled's Song and multiple Grade 1 winner Secret Status. He is owned by a syndicate composed of John Magnier, Derrick Smith, and Michael Tabor and trained by Todd Pletcher during his short racing career. Dunkirk acquired a measure of celebrity during the 2007 Keeneland Yearling Auction, where he sold for $3.7million.
Unbridled's Song was an American thoroughbred racehorse who won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, Florida Derby and Wood Memorial. He was the favorite for the 1996 Kentucky Derby but injured himself before the race and finished fifth. He finished his racing career with five wins from twelve starts and earnings of $1.3 million. He subsequently became a highly successful sire, with major winners including Breeders' Cup champions Arrogate, Forever Unbridled, Midshipman and Liam's Map. He was posthumously the leading sire in North America of 2017.
Todd Pletcher is an American thoroughbred horse trainer. He won the Eclipse Award seven times as Trainer of the Year, four of these in consecutive years. His horses Super Saver (2010) and Always Dreaming (2017) won the Kentucky Derby. He also won the Belmont Stakes with Rags to Riches (2007), Palace Malice (2013) and Tapwrit (2017).
Unraced at 2, he broke his maiden at age 3 in 2009 at first asking at Gulfstream Park. He followed that win with an Allowance victory, also at Gulfstream Park. He then placed second in the Florida Derby, a race in which victorious Quality Road set a new track record.
The Florida Derby is an American Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-old horses held annually at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Florida. Since 2005, it has been run five weeks before the Kentucky Derby, which is held on the first Saturday in May. Thus the Florida Derby is currently run either at the end of March or the beginning of April. Added to the racing schedule in 1952, the Grade I race is run at 1 1⁄8 miles on the dirt for a purse currently set at $1 Million.
Quality Road is an American Thoroughbred racehorse.
In the 2009 Kentucky Derby, Dunkirk finished 11th after stumbling badly at the beginning. This was the first time he had failed to finish in the top two. He then skipped the mid-May Preakness Stakes and aimed for the Belmont Stakes in early June at Belmont Park.
The Preakness Stakes is an American flat thoroughbred horse race held on the third Saturday in May each year at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. It is a Grade I race run over a distance of 9.5 furlongs on dirt. Colts and geldings carry 126 pounds (57 kg); fillies 121 lb (55 kg). It is the second jewel of the Triple Crown, held two weeks after the Kentucky Derby and three weeks before the Belmont Stakes.
The Belmont Stakes is an American Grade I stakes Thoroughbred horse race held on the first or second Saturday in June at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York. Belmont Park is known as "The Championship Track" because nearly every major American champion in racing history has competed on the racetrack. Belmont Park, with its wide, sweeping turns and long homestretch, is considered one of the fairest racetracks. It is a 1.5-mile-long (2.4 km) horse race, open to three-year-old Thoroughbreds. Colts and geldings carry a weight of 126 pounds (57 kg); fillies carry 121 pounds (55 kg). The race, nicknamed The Test of the Champion, and The Run for the Carnations, is the third and final leg of the Triple Crown and is held five weeks after the Kentucky Derby and three weeks after the Preakness Stakes. The 1973 Belmont Stakes and Triple Crown winner Secretariat holds the mile and a half stakes record of 2:24.
After setting a fast pace for the first 6 furlongs, Dunkirk was overtaken in the stretch but fought back to finish 2nd behind eventual 3-year old champion Summer Bird, beating the Kentucky Derby winner, Mine That Bird. After the race, it was discovered that Dunkirk had suffered a condylar fracture in his left hind cannon bone. After a successful surgery, Dunkirk was expected to return to racing in 2010 at age 4, but he instead was retired to stand stud at Ashford Stud in Kentucky.
Summer Bird was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse, son of 2004 Belmont Stakes winner Birdstone. He was bred by retired cardiologist Kalarikkal Jayaraman and his wife, retired pathologist Vilasini Jayaraman, at their Tiffany Farm near Ocala, Florida. On June 3, 2010, Summer Bird was retired due to complications of a previous injury.
The Kentucky Derby is a horse race that is held annually in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, on the first Saturday in May, capping the two-week-long Kentucky Derby Festival. The race is a Grade I stakes race for three-year-old Thoroughbreds at a distance of one and a quarter miles (2.0 km) at Churchill Downs. Colts and geldings carry 126 pounds and fillies 121 pounds.
Mine That Bird is an American Thoroughbred racehorse who had a racing career in both Canada and the United States from 2008 to 2010. He is best known for pulling off a monumental upset, at 50-to-1 odds, by winning the Kentucky Derby in 2009. He became one of only nine geldings to win the Kentucky Derby and the second gelding to win the race since 1929. He continued to have success in the two remaining races of the American Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing by finishing second in the 2009 Preakness Stakes and third in the 2009 Belmont Stakes. On November 6, 2010, Mine That Bird was retired from racing after being winless in nine starts following the Kentucky Derby. He amassed $2,228,637 in earnings and won five of eighteen starts during his three-year racing career.
