Retirement and Death
While Sham did not race again after the Belmont Stakes, he was not retired until July 1973. A hairline fracture of his leg was discovered while he was being prepared to meet Secretariat again at Saratoga, and his racing career officially ended. Sham was first sent to stud duty at Spendthrift Farm and later to Walmac International near Lexington, Kentucky. Some of his progeny included stakes winners Arewehavingfunyet (f), Jaazeiro, and Safe Play, the dam of stakes winner Defensive Play. He died of a heart attack on April 3, 1993, at the age 23. At autopsy, his heart was found to weigh 18 pounds, about twice the size of the average Thoroughbred heart. He is buried on the Walmac farm.
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Famous quotes containing the words retirement and/or death:
“He who comes into Assemblies only to gratifie his Curiosity, and not to make a Figure, enjoys the Pleasures of Retirement in a[n] ...exquisite Degree.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)
“It is better to sit down than to stand, it is better to lie down than to sit, but death is the best of all.”
—Indian proverb, quoted in Sébastien-roch Nicolas de Chamfort, Maxims and Considerations, vol. 1, no. 155 (1796, trans. 1926)