Hal Brings It Home

November 06, 2022

Excerpt from Accelerate, The Lieutenant Sire First Stakes Winners By Eric Mitchell & Byron King
On Breeders' Cup Saturday Nov. 5, freshman sire and 2018 Longines Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) winner Accelerate sired his first stakes winner when Hal scored a half-length victory in the CA$130,750 Display Stakes at Woodbine.

Hal is a homebred for Suzi Shoemaker's Lantern Hill Farm and First Corp. Thoroughbreds. The gelding won his racing debut Oct. 2 at Woodbine and immediately followed with his stakes win going seven furlongs on Woodbine's Tapeta surface in 1:22 under Justin Stein, paying $6.90. Hal is trained by Darwin Banach.

Lantern Hill and First Corp. bred Hal out of the grade 3 winner Purely a Dream (Pure Prize), who is out of English stakes-placed winner Yorksters Girl. Hal is Purely a Dream's only foal.

Accelerate won five grade 1s during his racing career for Hronis Racing and trainer John Sadler—connections who celebrated Flightline's victory in the Breeders' Cup Classic Saturday at Keeneland. Hronis Racing owns Flightline in partnership

A son of Lookin At Lucky, Accelerate was the champion older male horse of 2018, when he punctuated his 5-year-old campaign by winning the Classic at Churchill Downs. Following a third in the Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes (G1) at Gulfstream Park in January 2019, he retired to stud with a record of 10 wins, five seconds, and six thirds from 23 starts and earnings of more than $6.6 million.

Accelerate entered Saturday with 12 winners from his first crop of runners. The stallion will stand the 2023 season at Lane's End in Versailles, Ky., for an advertised fee of $10,000.