Canadian Horse Of The Year Sealy Hill Dies At Age 17

Sealy Hill at the 2013 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Winter Mixed Sale.

Sealy Hill, the 2007 Canadian Horse of the Year and successful broodmare, has been euthanized due to the infirmities of old age, BloodHorse reports.

The daughter of Point Given resided at Bonne Chance Farm in Versailles, Ky., where she spent nearly her entire broodmare career, owned either by Bonne Chance or Regis Farms. She will be buried on the farm.

Sealy Hill raced as an Ontario-born homebred for Eugene Melnyk, trained by Mark Casse, winning seven of 18 starts for earnings of $1,747,081.

She is best known for her 2007 campaign, where she secured the Sovereign Awards as Canada’s Horse of the Year, champion turf female, and 3-year-old female. Her season started in the U.S., including a win in the Grade 3 Bourbonette Oaks, then she moved back to Woodbine for the summer, where she became the first – and so far, only – horse to sweep Canada’s Triple Tiara: the Woodbine Oaks, Bison City Stakes, and Wonder Where Stakes. She added runner-up efforts in the G2 Canadian Stakes and G1 E.P. Taylor Stakes in the fall.

Sealy Hill raced for one more season, where she earned placings in three graded stakes, including a runner-up effort in the 2008 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Santa Anita Park.

As a broodmare, Sealy Hill had nine foals, with seven starters and five winners; four of which won in graded stakes company.

The most prominent among them is Cambier Parc, by Medaglia d’Oro, whose four graded stakes victories for owner Larry Best’s OXO Equine include two against Grade 1 competition.

Sealy Hill passed the mantle of Sovereign Award success on to her first foal, the Distorted Humor filly Hillaby, who was named Canada’s champion female sprinter of 2014. Other notable runners out of Sealy Hill include Grade 3 winners Belle Hill (by Sky Mesa) and Gale Force (by Giant’s Causeway).

Sealy Hill’s final foal, the Into Mischief colt Eleven Central, was born in 2018 and is working toward his first start at Palm Meadows Training Center. He was purchased as a yearling by Best for $950,000. The mare did not catch when she was bred to Distorted Humor in 2019, and she had not been bred since then.