Starspangledbanner’s Gstaad retires to Coolmore
Gstaad, the dual Group 1-winning son of Australian-bred Starspangledbanner, has been retired and will stand at Coolmore’s Fethard headquarters in Co Tipperary for the 2027 northern hemisphere season. Coolmore announced the retirement on Thursday.
Gstaad was the Cartier champion two-year-old colt of 2025, when he won the Coventry Stakes and the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf. In May this year he won the Irish 2000 Guineas in a time that broke a record that had stood for 28 years.
He retires with four wins, six seconds and a third from 12 starts. Three of those seconds came behind Bow Echo this season, in the 2000 Guineas, the St James’s Palace Stakes and the Sussex Stakes.
“To win a Coventry and a Breeders’ Cup at two, and then come back to win the Irish 2000 Guineas in record time shows incredible constitution and class,” Coolmore’s Mark Byrne said.
Bred by Maywood Stud, Gstaad is out of the Exceed And Excel mare Mosa Mine and cost Coolmore 450,000gns at the 2023 Tattersalls December Foal Sale. He is a half-brother to Prix Morny and Middle Park Stakes winner Vandeek, who covered 151 mares at Arrowfield Stud in his first Australian season in 2025 at $22,000 (inc GST). Vandeek then missed the 2026 southern hemisphere season after suffering a tendon injury in quarantine in Melbourne.
Given his Australian pedigree, it would appear likely that Coolmore may decide to shuttle him to Australia.
