In the final start of her career before retirement, Idiomatic provided fans with quite a memory, drawing off in the stretch under regular rider Florent Geroux to post a 6 1/2-length victory in the Spinster Stakes (G1) Oct. 6 at Keeneland.
While an ill-timed setback denied the 5-year-old daughter of Curlin an opportunity to defend her 2023 victory in the Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1) in what would have been a showdown with top 3-year-old filly Thorpedo Anna, Idiomatic still reached some milestones in 2024—becoming just the fourth horse in the past 50 years to win the Spinster two years in a row.
That victory, her second grade 1 score of the year, likely lifted Idiomatic to the divisional championship as the speedy West Coast-based Adare Manor, a 5-year-old daughter of Uncle Mo, also won a pair of two-turn grade 1 races—the Clement L. Hirsch Stakes and Apple Blossom Handicap. And, Raging Sea, a 4-year-old daughter of Curlin, edged Idiomatic in the Personal Ensign Stakes (G1) Aug. 23 at Saratoga Race Course, and later finished second to Thorpedo Anna in the Distaff.
In her five-race season of 2024, Idiomatic won the Molly Pitcher Stakes (G3) at Monmouth Park, La Troienne Stakes (G1) at Churchill Downs, and the Spinster and finished second by a head in both of her other two starts: the Personal Ensign and the Ogden Phipps Stakes (G1) at Saratoga.
Trainer Brad Cox said it was special to win the Spinster—a race Juddmonte sponsors—for a second straight year.
"It's a very special race. It's a race that we ran in several times before we were able to finally win it with her in 2023," Cox said. "To do it in back-to-back years is very special. She's obviously a classy mare. We're hopeful that she can have some offspring that'll be half as good as her."
Cox thanked Juddmonte for racing Idiomatic in 2024, giving her the opportunity to defend her championship. The trainer added that he was glad that Idiomatic was able to show her class after some setbacks early in her career.
In announcing her retirement, Juddmonte noted Idiomatic's impressive consistency. She just missed, by two heads, a perfect season in 2024 after winning eight of her nine starts—including three grade 1 races—in 2023. She finished first or second in her 14 starts of 2023-24.
"Idiomatic was a model of consistency who elevated herself to the grade 1 level and stayed there for two exciting campaigns," Juddmonte said in a release. "Her power, ability, and honesty were exciting characteristics."
There's plenty of hope for Idiomatic as a broodmare. She is out of the grade 1-placed, stakes-winning daughter of First Defence, Lockdown, who is a full sister to Close Hatches, who earned champion older mare honors in 2014 and is the dam of classic-placed multiple grade 2 winner Tacitus as well as grade 2 winner Scylla and grade 3 winner Batten Down.
