Takeover Target Dies

Nine years to the day of his victory in the G2 King's Stand S. at Royal Ascot, Australian sprinting hero Takeover Target (Aus) (Celtic Swing {GB}–Shady Stream {Aus}, by Archregent) has died at the age of 15. The gelding broke his leg in a paddock accident Saturday. 

Purchased by owner-trainer and former taxi driver Joe Janiak for just A$1,250, Takeover Target would go on to earn more than A$6 million in prize money and win top-level sprints in four countries. Takeover Target did not make his racecourse debut until four due to injury, but he made up for lost time, winning his first seven starts culminating in his first Group 1, Flemington's Salinger S., at five. He added the G1 Lightning S. and G1 Newmarket H. the following season, resulting in an invite to Royal Ascot, where he won the then-Group 2 King's Stand four days before finishing third in the G1 Golden Jubilee S. From England Takeover Target traveled to Japan, where he won Nakayama's G1 Sprinters S., giving him the most points for that year's Global Sprint Challenge. 

Takeover Target again traveled to Royal Ascot after winning the following year's G1 Doomben 10,000, this time finishing fourth in the King's Stand behind fellow Australian Miss Andretti (Aus) (Ihtrahim {Ire}) and second in the Golden Jubilee of 2007. The following May he added another successful stamp to his passport when taking the KrisFlyer International Sprint in Singapore–not yet a Group 1–before yet again jumping on the plane to Ascot, where he was second in the King's Stand and fourth in the Golden Jubilee. In his final season on the track as a 9-year-old in 2008/09, Takeover Target won four straight races, including the G1 TJ Smith S. and G1 Goodwood S. Down Under. He returned to Kranji to finish eighth in the KrisFlyer, and once again headed to England for Royal Ascot. A temperature kept him out of that meeting, however, and the gelding rerouted to Newmarket's G1 July Cup, where he finished seventh, but fractured a hind cannon bone in the process, an injury that required surgery and forced his retirement. Takeover Target went to the paddock with 21 wins from 41 starts, and was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame in 2012. Joe Janiak told racing.com Saturday, “He must have been trying to get up and his foot went from underneath him. I'd say that the break was where the screws were [from his surgery after the July Cup] and there was a bit of wear and tear and I think that it just came apart.” 

“Thankfully he's had six years of a good life in the paddock,” Janiak added. “He made a lot of people very happy, he made a lot of people rich and sent a few bookmakers broke.”