Charles Fipke's homebred grade 1 winner Unbridled Forever was euthanized March 17 following complications due to injuries suffered during foaling that required surgery, the owner/breeder's bloodstock adviser Sid Fernando disclosed on Steve Byk's "At The Races" radio program.
The 10-year-old daughter of Unbridled's Song out of Kentucky Oaks (G1) winner Lemons Forever delivered a colt March 15 by Medaglia d'Oro , which is healthy and on a nurse mare. Lemons Forever also lost her Medaglia d'Oro foal March 23, according to Fernando
"It is a massive loss," Fernando later told BloodHorse. "Mares like her are so hard to come by, and Mr. Fipke is so invested in his horses. He is the type of owner that will spend any amount of money to try to save a horse, so everything possible was done."
Unbridled Forever is one of two grade 1 stakes winners bred and raced by Fipke out of Lemons Forever, who he acquired at the 2007 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale for $2.5 million. The other grade 1 winner is full sister Forever Unbridled, who won four grade 1 stakes among her seven total graded stakes victories and was named 2017 champion older dirt female.
Racing from 2 to 4 with trainer Dallas Stewart, Unbridled Forever won four times and placed in five of her 12 career starts. At 3, she became a stakes winner in her first start of 2014 when she won the Silverbulletday Stakes at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots. She followed that performance with four placed finishes in graded stakes—thirds in the Fair Grounds Oaks (G2), Kentucky Oaks, and TVG Acorn Stakes (G1), and a runner-up effort in the Coaching Club American Oaks (G1). At 4, she picked up another stakes win in the Shine Again Stakes at Saratoga Race Course before eventually winning at the highest level by a length in the 2015 Ballerina Stakes (G1). She was retired with $805,257 in earnings.
Unbridled Forever has been regularly bred to Darley's Medaglia d'Oro since she was retired to the paddocks in 2016. She has produced four foals—two colts and two fillies—since 2017. One foal has started so far, her daughter Unbridled d'Oro who placed second in her only start at 2 and finished unplaced in her 2021 debut at Gulfstream Park where she got bumped at the start. Fipke has not offered any of Unbridled Forever's foals at auction.
