2025 Thoroughbred Inductee
On the racetrack and at stud, Frank Stronach‘s remarkable Horse of the Year, Ghostzapper, has had an impact on racing and breeding in Canada. Not since the 1960s, when Victoria Park was at stud, has a stallion sired three King’s Plate winners. Ghostzapper has sired three Plate winners in the last 12 years.
The 2004 Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) hero had that enviable blend of speed and stamina that allowed him to win major races from seven to 10 furlongs. Foaled in 2000 at Adena Spring’s in Kentucky, Ghostzapper was sent to the barn of Hall of Fame trainer, Bobby Frankel, in California. He won his career debut as a juvenile at Hollywood Park and developed quickly in 2003.
Called a ‘dream horse, possibly a super horse’ by Frankel, Ghostzapper won his first Grade 1 late in his 3-year-old season, taking the seven-furlong Vosburgh Stakes at Belmont Park with a devastating stretch run from last to first. Ghostzapper battled minor foot issues later during that 2003 season and missed the Breeders’ Cup races but he more than made up for it the following season.
In 2004, Ghostzapper won all four of his races by more than 18 lengths combined and capped off the year at Lone Star Park in Texas with a three-length win in the Classic, earning him the Horse of the Year title. That season, his Beyer Speed Figures increased from 114 to an incredible 128, one of the highest numbers ever recorded since Beyer Figures were published in the early 90s.
Ghostzapper, who was inducted into the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame in 2012, entered stud in Kentucky and he was very popular with Canadian breeders and buyers. From his first crop came Hunters Bay, a double-graded stakes winner and a Sovereign Award winner for Champion Older horse in 2012. His Ontario bred daughter, Judy the Beauty, won the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint at Santa Anita and was almost the unanimous winner of that year’s Eclipse Award for Champion Female Sprinter.
His first Queen’s Plate winner was Shaman Ghost in 2012. The filly, Holy Helena, beat the boys for the Plate win in 2017. Both horses were owned by Stronach. In 2022, the marvellous Moira romped over the boys in the Plate and went on to complete her racing career with a win in the 2024 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf. Raced by Madaket Stable, SF Bloodstock and X-Men Racing, Moira was named last year’s Eclipse Award winner as Champion Turf Female.
Now 25 years old, Ghostzapper relocated to to Stronach’s Adena Springs North in Aurora, Ontario where he will live out his years.